Other journalists who have spoken with TikTok press representatives have told me that company representatives open my emails requesting comment with trepidation. One journalist said a representative told them he would invariably ask them to comment on an internal policy, a leaked document, or a new feature they didn’t even know existed yet. And I’m currently working on more difficult stories on the platform. (If you have any advice, please contact me for my signal number.)
But those difficult stories will not focus on the company that provides data to Chinese authorities, nor on the security risks associated with its connection to the Chinese state. Because I haven’t found any evidence of either. I want to find that connection because, like any journalist, I’m selfish and I want to be the one to break a story like that. I have been trying for years to find some link with the Chinese State. I’ve spoken to dozens of TikTok employees, past and present, searching for that connection. But I haven’t discovered it.
I can’t say that link doesn’t exist. But I can say that I and other more talented journalists have been undermining the TikTok edifice. We now know that the company has spied on journalists and has workplace harassment problems. TikTok’s finances are constantly leaked. But none of us have found the irrefutable proof. And I don’t think my fellow journalists are any less eager to find it than I am.
We are in a strange political position. Donald Trump’s legacy lives on in the way we have our own personal fictions, which we firmly believe are facts or which we have repeated so often that we forget the truth. Among those fictions: TikTok is a proven risk. TikTok is a puppet of the Chinese state. TikTok is a Trojan horse waiting to be activated by Chinese President Xi Jinping to bring down the West.
Triumph launched a series of online ads in 2020 saying: “TikTok is spying on you.” It’s a sentiment that has been echoed by other politicians, including Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who is concerned about TikTok’s ties to China.
None of this is true. At least as far as I know. However, hearing politicians from both sides of the aisle talk about it is a verifiable fact. And they want the app to be banned because of that.
These American politicians are taking a curiously Chinese approach: cracking down and censoring in the interests of harmony, rather than allowing free enterprise from a company that has shown that it is willing to go to great lengths to try to respond to concerns and has made what appear to be good faith efforts to address problems as they arise.
We’re likely to see a lot of heat, and not much light, at Thursday’s congressional hearing. There will be the usual protests from TikTok that it has no connections to the Chinese government, and the usual bluster from politicians that TikTok’s answers aren’t good enough. But for the sake of 150 million Americans Now that we use the app, we have to hope that TikTok’s responses are enough.
