After 6 months, TikTok and the United States government have restarted negotiations to determine the future of the app in the country. As reported The Washington Postrepresentatives of the social network and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) met last week in Washington.
The conclave would have taken place at the Treasury Department and would have served for the parties to review the agreement proposed by TikTok to avoid its blockage in North America. The aforementioned media indicates, in any case, that the meeting would not imply a relaxation of the US position regarding the fate of the popular video platform.
There is speculation that the CFIUS could be reconsidering the proposal that TikTok did at the time to bring peace of mind to the White House in the face of growing concern about the possible use of the app for espionage work by China. This is because Joe Biden’s administration has not been able to advance in Congress with the enactment of a law that gives free rein to the Department of Commerce to block the app.
The curious thing about the case is that the new rapprochement between the United States and the company belonging to ByteDance occurs at a crucial moment for the political sphere: the start of the campaign for the 2024 presidential elections. With more than 150 million users in that country alone, TikTok is now considered key to reaching the young electorate. Therefore, it is not surprising that more Democratic and Republican politicians are beginning to have a presence on the social network. Even those who have spoken publicly in favor of his veto.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for president of the United States for the Republican Party, announced his arrival on TikTok days ago. In a post on X (Twitter)the politician and businessman explained his determination:
“Yes, those under 16 shouldn’t be using TikTok, but the fact is that many young voters do and we’re not going to change this country without winning. We can’t just talk about the importance of the Republican Party ‘reaching the masses.’ young voters’ while we hide in our own echo chambers. It’s bad that the Chinese Communist Party collects data from American users through TikTok, but the truth is that it’s not better when ‘American’ companies like Airbnb do the same by delivering “U.S. user data to China. And we’re not going to get China to play by the same rules until we win this.”
TikTok was willing to hand over control of the app to the United States government
The last time there was talk of a possible ban on TikTok in the United States was in March. At that time, Washington warned the company that He could only evade the blockade by selling his American business and cutting all ties with China.. In addition, security agencies had abandoned the review of the app’s code and infrastructure to banish any possibility of a data leak to the Asian giant. And everything indicated that the intention was not to take it up again.
However, as the weeks went by the topic cooled down. To the point that, as we said at the beginning, 6 months passed without any public talk again about the possibility of banning TikTok in North American lands. Despite this, from the ByteDance social network they continued working on part of the agreement they presented to the White House, migrating user data to an infrastructure provided and managed by Oracle. They also made changes to their employment structure, moving all US employees to a local subsidiary called TikTok US Data Security.
But what is truly striking is that previously unknown details of the plan presented by TikTok have come to light. In accordance with The Washington Postthe social network was willing to give absolute control of its operation to the US authorities. In fact, the subsidiary would have a board with members chosen by the CFIUS and would not report to ByteDance, but to the United States government.
The Departments of Defense, Treasury and Justice would have direct interference over the operation of the company, and could impose conditions for the hiring of new personnel. Or even instigate modifications to the source code of the video platform. It is evident that TikTok was willing to do anything to ensure its continued operation in the US market.
It is still unclear why the White House ultimately declined this possibility. Fear of a negative reaction from the public and press is likely to have played a key role. For now, it is evident that there is a rapprochement between both parties. And although a possible veto has not been ruled out, The matter has subsided quite a bit..
We will have to see how this issue progresses. While its future is resolved in the United States, TikTok faces new challenges in Europe. Today, for example, a fine of 345 million euros was confirmed against the company for mismanagement of the data of its underage users.