Fear not, Gen Z — help is on the way.
Just hours before President Donald Trump officially announced he was moving forward with the colossal measure of banning TikTok in the United States, the social media app’s supporters may have received some good news.
Big tech superpower Microsoft threw on its cape last week, stunning the social media community by announcing the existence of ongoing discussions to purchase TikTok’s operations within the United States.
“Microsoft fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President’s concerns,” the company wrote in a statement. “It is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury.”
Microsoft hopes to complete the discussions no later than Sept. 15, 2020. This could wind up being the massive development that TikTok needs to remain alive within the US.
TikTok, valued at $100 billion, has been under siege in the US in recent weeks, largely due to its relationship with parent company ByteDance, a multinational tech company based out of Beijing. Many in the United States have argued that allowing TikTok to flourish within the Land of the Free is problematic for national security. Because TikTok, boasting nearly 80 million active users in the US, has Chinese roots, many US officials fear that it may one day be legally required to share user data with the Chinese government.
TikTok has tried to fight back, saying it won’t be beholden to those controversial national surveillance laws, but the US isn’t quite convinced. The case against TikTok has received a wealth of support from both sides of the aisle in the US, with the House recently approving legislation to ban TikTok from all government devices. It may be the first instance of congressional bipartisanship since we launched ol’ Buzz and Neil to the moon back in the summer of ‘69. Shoutout to TikTok for reminding us that our leaders can sometimes just, like, agree on things.
Campaign staffers for presumptive presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden were recently asked to remove the popular app from their devices, signaling that any potential changes come November may not be enough to save TikTok from judgment day.
Plenty of other organizations have already decided to act, most notably the Department of Defense. Just about every branch of the Armed Forces has banned the application from government devices. Private companies like Wells Fargo and (briefly) Amazon sent out memos asking its employees to delete the app from any mobile device with access to company email accounts.
India has easily taken the strongest measures, outright banning the application across the country to instantly eliminate TikTok’s largest audience of 119 million active users.
Microsoft aims to stop that trend in its tracks, announcing plans to revamp the social media platform’s privacy model.
“This new structure would build on the experience TikTok users currently love, while adding world-class security, privacy, and digital safety protections. The operating model for the service would be built to ensure transparency to users as well as appropriate security oversight by governments in these countries.
“Among other measures, Microsoft would ensure that all private data of TikTok’s American users is transferred to and remains in the United States. To the extent that any such data is currently stored or backed-up outside the United States, Microsoft would ensure that this data is deleted from servers outside the country after it is transferred.”
News of a potential acquisition comes just days after TikTok tried to sway public opinion with some other unprecedented tactics. TikTok announced plans to give US officials and privacy experts the opportunity to examine its software code as a means for greater transparency.
“We believe it is essential to show users, advertisers, creators, and regulators that we are responsible and committed members of the American community that follows US laws,” TikTok CEO, Kevin Mayer, wrote in a statement.
TikTok wants to put any spyware allegations to the bed, asking privacy experts to poke and prod as much as they need to in order to cement the company’s claims: TikTok is no worse at harvesting user data than any one of its mainstream competitors (because “Hey, we’re no worse than those guys!” is such a low-bar argument that can only exist in big tech).
“Even more, we believe our entire industry should be held to an exceptionally high standard,” Mayer wrote. “That's why we believe all companies should disclose their algorithms, moderation policies, and data flows to regulators. We will not wait for regulation to come, but instead TikTok has taken the first step by launching a Transparency and Accountability Center for moderation and data practices. Experts can observe our moderation policies in real-time, as well as examine the actual code that drives our algorithms. This puts us a step ahead of the industry, and we encourage others to follow suit.”
Except, there’s little reason to believe the story would have ended there if not for Bill Gates and his buddies.
A greater sense of transparency on TikTok’s collection of user data is only half the battle. You could make the argument that it’s actually the lesser of the two fronts TikTok is currently fighting on. US policymakers are, after all, worried about TikTok’s relationship to the Chinese Communist Party.
Unless TikTok can prove that it’s not collecting any user data (which, let’s be honest: lol), this may wind up being a pretty empty gesture. But coupling that transparency with a change in ownership could propel TikTok back into the good graces of lawmakers and users alike.
TikTok has already done a bit to distance itself from its Chinese roots, hiring an American CEO, moving its user data storage to the US, as well as committing to hiring 10,000 American workers by 2023.
Time will tell if the company even gets the chance to do so.
What are your thoughts? Will TikTok survive? Feel free to comment below.