TikTok: When an unstoppable app meets an immovable political force

The saga of TikTok with its 1.7 billion users may be entering its next act. TikTok is owned by Bytedance, a Chinese company. It has 170 million American users. The United States (US) business may soon be hived off in a deal with the approval of the US and Chinese governments. 

TikTok has been banned in the US since January 2025. There have been back-and-forth negotiations about an enforced selloff of TikTok US for years. Assuming this happens, (it seems as certain as anything involving the inconsistent Donald Trump administration can be), this would be a mega-billion carveout. Control of the algorithm and processing of US–related data would go to the new owners.   

TikTok is the only Chinese social media platform with global traction of the same order as Facebook, Insta, and Twitter. ByteDance is estimated to have reported 2024 revenues of $155 billion, with around $33 billion in profits. About $39 billion of those revenues came from outside China, with $10 billion earned in the US. In 2024, US adult users spent an average of 52 minutes per day on TikTok. 

A lot of creative brilliance is required to create a platform that exploits behavioural patterns to inspire huge dollops of content. Creating a TikTok video is a simple, intuitive process. A new user can do it within 15 minutes of getting onto the platform. Uploading video from elsewhere is also easy. 

When TikTok launched, videos were restricted to 15 seconds. Now, in-app TikTok videos can be a maximum of 10 minutes long. This works well given short attention spans. You can upload longer videos recorded outside TikTok, but most content seems to come in at below a minute. 

There is algorithmic genius involved in getting people engaged with that content and keeping them engaged to the point of addiction. That’s another element of the secret sauce. TikTok feeds are unique to the user and very carefully curated to keep you scrolling.   

The smart algo feeds into a smart business model that translates engagement into cash and influence. TikTok knows enough about its users to find the right ads to show each individual. It is also pretty good at finding content that fits well with, and amplifies worldviews. A mad racist will be served content that fits with their specific brand of mad racism; someone who wants to see children singing hymns in chorus, or cats doing weird things, will be offered that content. 

But going beyond the creative and business smarts, there’s also lots of geopolitical complexity, security-related paranoia, and multiple conspiracy theories centred on TikTok. A Chinese app grabbing a big chunk of mindshare in global social media has triggered lots of racist tropes. There are plenty of people who believe that social media mindshare should only be controlled by big corporations based in Silicon Valley. 

User data and content stored and processed in servers controlled by Bytedance in the People’s Republic of China (or Singapore or wherever) has also raised “security” and privacy concerns. India, for example, cited security risks before banning TikTok. The bipartisan US lobbies that have tried to shutdown TikTok, or force the sale of the US business, have also cited such concerns. 

It’s not very clear how much of a security threat TikTok is in reality. Any freely viewable social media content may contain sensitive information such as, for example, the location of a video, identifiable persons, and sensitive personal data related to posters and content providers who share revenue. It’s also possible that many other China-centric companies may receive lots of sensitive personal data given the vast number of Chinese smartphones in circulation, which may have “backdoors”.  These concerns aren’t unique to TikTok. 

There are also concerns about pornographic and political content.  A consortium led by Larry Ellison is trying to take over US TikTok with the Trump administration’s blessings. Mr Ellison is strongly pro-Israel and pro-Maga. 

Given control of the algo and access to user data, will TikTok US wipe or shadow-ban all content that doesn’t conform to Mr Ellison’s worldview, and amplify content that does fit with his politics? Also, given that the Trump administration has gone after media organisations and talk-show hosts, it’s conceivable TikTok users could be targeted. So there are also concerns about freedom of expression, which loops back into debates about media freedoms. As investors often say on Wall Street, this will be a “key monitorable”.