Compared with TikTok’s patient explanation and communication in the past few years in the face of the US government’s suppression, TikTok has recently taken actions that are very different from its previous style. On March 7, ET, TikTok sends pop-up push notifications in the app to a total of 170 million users in the United States.Call on them to call their members of Congress to withdraw the TikTok divestment bill.
The content of TikTok's full-screen pop-up user is: Now is the time to speak out, “before the government deprives 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free speech.” “This (bill) will deprive 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free speech,” “Harming millions of businesses, destroying the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and depriving artists of their audience,” “Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and get them to vote no.”
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Stop a TikTok shutdown｜Image source: TikTok
According to some information learned from the Geek Park investigation,TikTok's move was made by the local team in the United States because the situation is more urgent and there is no retreat.Compared with the executive order signed by then President Trump in 2020, requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok's business in the United States within 90 days, otherwise it will face a ban, this time the “Protecting Americans from Applications Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act” (Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act) appears more urgent and direct.
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Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act｜Image source: Official website of the U.S. Congress
Less than a day after TikTok popped up asking users for help,The U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed the divestment bill of TikTok, a subsidiary of ByteDance, with a vote of 50:0.The bill's next step will be March 11, when the House of Representatives will hold a fast-track vote on the proposal. The bill was introduced by 19 members of the U.S. House of Representatives on March 5.
The bill requires ByteDance to divest control of its short video application TikTok within 165 days, otherwise TikTok will face the fate of being removed from all US app stores. The 12-page draft legislative proposal contains the names of only two companies, ByteDance and TikTok.
In addition, only the House of Representatives is advancing the bill to divest TikTok this time, not the Senate, and the process is further accelerated. On the afternoon of March 8, local time, U.S. President Biden said in an interview with foreign media, “If they pass it, I will sign it.”
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TikTok in the United States:
Frequently encountering difficulties, there is no way to retreat
In November 2019, the U.S. government conducted a national security review of TikTok parent company ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly.The focus is on the processing and storage of user data. The “making things difficult” started. Between November 2019 and July 2020, the U.S. Senate held a series of hearings on the Chinese application TikTok, with the purpose of promoting relevant legislation to ban the use of TikTok in the United States.
In the process, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed a bill in July 2020 that aimed to ban federal employees from using TikTok on government devices. Then in August, then-President Trump signed two executive orders. The orders aim to restrict TikTok's downloads, updates and operations in the United States, and require TikTok's parent company ByteDance to divest its U.S. operations within 90 days. The ban was not immediately implemented, but the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) subsequently launched a national security review process for TikTok.
In March 2020, Tiktok announced two important measures to build transparency.Demonstrate to the outside world that the company is safe and trustworthy:Establish a “Transparency and Accountability Center” to allow external visitors to view TikTok's content review backend system, including some application code and data management operations. At the same time, TikTok also released a transparency report to disclose information related to its operations and data processing; established A content advisory board has been established, which is composed of independent academics and industry experts. They provide advice and supervision to TikTok’s U.S. operations team on content management, technology ethics, and data security.
also,TikTok has also established a dedicated United States Data Security Company (USDS) toResponsible for managing the data of US users. At the same time, TikTok implemented a data isolation project called “Clover” and a “Texas” data security project. The annual operating costs of both plans reached approximately US$1 billion.
In May 2020, TikTok hired executives with American backgrounds, such as former Disney executive Kevin Mayer as ByteDance chief operating officer (COO) and TikTok global CEO. In August 2020, TikTok submitted an indictment to the Federal District Court for the Central District of California, formally accusing the US government of violating the administrative order issued by the US government on August 6 related to the company and its parent company Bytedance.
In September 2020, ByteDance reached an agreement with Oracle. Oracle will become TikTok's “trusted technology provider” in the United States. According to the agreement, Oracle has the right to conduct security inspections of TikTok's U.S. source code. In order to adapt to the US market and regulatory requirements, it can be seen that TikTok has taken a series of actions to localize data and improve transparency, and continuously strives to eliminate doubts.
Even outside of these actions, TikTok’s e-commerce operations in the United States are also taking a localized route.As an international company, TikTok first provides a channel for eager Chinese cross-border e-commerce companies to enter the U.S. market based on its profit-making efficiency. In fact, for Chinese sellers, the entry conditions and thresholds for TikTok e-commerce are not low: first, they need targeted invitations to enter: the TikTok Shop US site has opened a channel for cross-border merchants to enter through targeted invitations. This includes domestic entities and U.S. entities with Chinese legal entities, and the cooperation method is a “merchant self-operation” model. Secondly, in terms of entry requirements, Chinese sellers need to have a U.S. business license (Chinese account for more than 25% of the shares) and an EIN tax number, support domestic shipments in the United States, and have an annual GMV of more than 2 million US dollars for a single store on other cross-border leading platforms. .
TikTok mainly strives to support and promote the development of the local business ecosystem in the United States. This approach has even caused dissatisfaction among some domestic companies for a period of time.But behind this choice is the consideration behind TikTok e-commerce choosing to be more focused and localized in the US market. Its goal is to become a truly international company that supports the development of the business ecosystem in each region, rather than an incubator. China and companies designed to help Chinese businesses expand globally. Everything TikTok has done in the past is actually hoping that it can develop like a local company – localization of data, localization of the team, and localization of the business ecosystem. But even if TikTok strives to build a local system to support its operation, judging from the results, as long as TikTok’s parent company is of Chinese origin, these have not changed the US political environment’s suppression of TikTok that completely ignores facts and justice.
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Keep users informed:
Fight like a local company
A pop-up window calling on users to call congressmen to withdraw the bill is considered a very radical approach by Chinese audiences. After all, it seems that such actions may raise “questions” about corporate influence on politics. But in fact, this is just TikTok facing the challenge from the US government.Adopted a resistance strategy similar to that of American companies.
Because in the United States, many companies have called on users to take action in the past when facing legal challenges or policy changes. In 2012, during discussions on SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Preventing Economic Innovation and theft of Intellectual Property Online Act), Reddit joined other sites in a large-scale protest, including temporarily shutting down the site and calling on users to contact lawmakers to oppose these bills.
In the same year, Twitter users launched an event called “Twitter Blackout” to protest the SOPA and PIPA bills. Twitter encourages users to participate and make their voices heard through the social media platform. In 2015, Uber collected signatures by sending emails and other methods to mobilize users and drivers to express their opposition to the ban to local governments and legislative bodies. In 2016, when Airbnb faced strict short-term rental regulations in New York, the company used its platform to encourage users to contact local lawmakers to oppose laws that might restrict its services.
These companies often act to protect their business models, user interests, or to oppose laws or policies that may affect their operations.By mobilizing users, they attempt to influence the legislative process in order to safeguard their position in the market. In these struggles, the company's logic is “These unreasonable laws and decisions will infringe on the rights and interests of users. We need to let users know and have the right to take action to protect their rights and interests.”
This is not at all the same as companies using their influence to interfere in politics. This is just a legitimate struggle for fairness and justice in the business field, and it is in line with the American political system (at least legally) – politics should be responsible for the interests of voters. Of course, no company has ever launched a nationwide call for users to protest by phone on the scale of TikTok.
According to information learned by Geek Park, the decision for this operation was made by TikTok’s local team. The likely reason is that the proposal and rapid progress of the divestiture bill indicate that TikTok’s previous forms of resistance or compromise have has been declared invalid. Even after the U.S. Congressional hearing on “National Security and Data Privacy” in March last year.
At this hearing, the questioning mainly focused on “privacy theft” and “data security.” TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi went through more than 5 hours and more than 200 questions from the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. He only had 6 minutes to fully explain his position, and the rest of his responses were interrupted within 20 seconds.
The inquiry was filled with some ridiculous questions,For example, a member of Congress asked: Can TikTok access home WiFi networks?Zhou Shouzi's answer: It will have to access the network to connect to the Internet. This hearing, which revealed too much unprofessional content, allowed more American users who care about TikTok to strengthen their understanding of TikTok. At the same time, it also exposed the absurdity of the US court's groundless speculations and deductions about TikTok to the public.
At a hearing on child safety in early February this year, the absurdity was repeated again. Halfway through the hearing, Senator Tom CoTikTokon (R-AR) repeatedly asked TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi to answer a question that was completely unrelated to the subject of the hearing that day-the question of his identity. Now, an unfavorable situation has emerged again – not only threatening its normal operations and legal rights, but also having a real adverse impact on its user groups. The most reasonable time for TikTok to decide “to let users know and encourage users to protect their rights and interests” may be now.
On the one hand, the past two hearings have allowed its users to fully understand the absurdity of the unfair questioning faced by TikTok; at the same time, it is also a critical moment for TikTok to fight legally within the US legal framework. Because once the bill is passed in the Senate, it will officially become a legal bill in compliance with U.S. law, and it will be more difficult to reverse the situation. Before that day comes, when there is still a little room for resistance in the U.S. legal system, seemingly radical actions are also necessary means of self-defense, because compared to the question of whether TikTok is a Chinese company or an American company, it belongs 170 million US users is a better answer.
After all, when a company has no way out, TikTok has nothing to lose, and the worst outcome will not be worse than the spin-off that the established bill will lead to. It can be said that the TikTok team has done everything it can in localization, and even mobilized user power to engage in legal resistance like a local company.
But in today's American political environment, the direct effect of this action cannot be expected to be too high. But this is not the last moment. It can be expected that TikTok will use its completely local legal team to continue to defend itself in the most localized way in the American political and legal system.
most of the time,Fighting may not necessarily yield the best results, but fighting is also to leave a mark on the world.There is no doubt that TikTok is shouldering the pressure of an era, and it is also working hard to give the era a meaningful answer.