On April 24th, President Biden signed a bill mandating the sale of TikTok to an American owner. On May 6th, TikTok clapped back with a lawsuit claiming the new law is unconstitutional for violating TikTok users’ right to free speech.¹ We support the government's sudden concern about social media's role in spreading disinformation, but this bill doesn't help even a little.

Join our letter to Congress and President Biden: American ownership doesn't solve the problem. Protect us and our data on all platforms.

What’s behind the beef between TikTok and the US government? TikTok has its issues just like every other social platform, but we see the government’s narrow-sighted law for what it is; a xenophobic bit of political theater that distracts from the disinformation and election meddling already happening widely across all of our social media platforms– regardless of their owners’ ethnicities. We, too, are concerned about social media’s role in democracy. Let’s tell our elected leaders to address it for real.

The Tiktok law in question is couched in “national security” rationale; lawmakers claim that the Chinese government could compel TikTok to funnel content to American users that could sway their opinions in a national election. Here’s the thing: social media platforms are already used to sway public opinions in nefarious ways, and it has nothing to do with Beijing.

Take the current European Union probe into Meta’s suspected failure to stop coordinated foreign interference in European elections, or the well documented rollback of disinformation prevention measures across Meta, Youtube, and X.² If only we were so concerned about securing democracy on all platforms regardless of country, we might actually turn the tide against the dangerous disinformation that threatens our democratic processes. 

So, what’s this really about? For one thing, lawmakers are mad that TikTok users, who skew young, widely support a free Palestine. Unable to believe that youth consciousness might lean empathetic towards victims of an ongoing genocide, they instead accused TikTok’s parent company of “brainwashing American youth” into “sympathizing with Hamas.” This  insulting assertion, belied by the majority of the content shared on the platform, is one that TikTok vehemently denies.³ From there, lawmakers worked themselves into a panic about TikTok’s supposed influence on its users– while overlooking the algorithmic influence also baked into every single social media platform not addressed in this bill.

At Kairos, we agree that social media algorithms should be transparent, and that lawmakers need to get serious about regulating election disinformation and other threats to our democracy online. But this bill doesn’t do that, at all. It scapegoats one popular platform for the wrong reasons (cough cough, racism), while overlooking bad actors in our own backyard. Does anyone actually think Elon Musk is a good steward of a social media platform just because he’s American?⁴

Join us to tell Congress: We need regulation that protects us across all platforms regardless of national origin.

Letter to Congress:

Dear Congress,

We urge you to enact more sensible legislation than the law forcing TikTok to divest from their from Chinese ownership. Rather than singling out one platform using xenophobic dog whistles and unfair double standards, we demand policy that protects us by:

1. Prioritizing people’s data over Big Tech’s profit. Platforms should give people the right to access, correct, and delete personal data.
2. Allowing people to easily opt-out of ad tracking. It’s not enough to give us an option when it is difficult to find and puts the onus on users.
3. Building systems so that the pursuit of engagement does not favor hate content, conspiracies, polarization and disinformation. Platforms should never monetize any content of this kind.
4. Mandating transparency for how user data is stored, used, and sold across all platforms and for all users. Opt-outs are not enough. User data must be used ethically and judiciously wherever it is collected.
   

We know that U.S.-based social media companies fail us all the time– from selling our data without our consent, to allowing disinformation to proliferate, to openly tolerating mental health dangers to their youngest users. We need better across the board.

Sincerely,

Kairos supporters

Sources:

1. “TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over Law Forcing Sale or Ban,” New York Times, May 7, 2024.
2. “Facebook and Instagram hit with EU probes over Russian disinformation,” Politico, Apr. 30, 2024; “Can social media companies safeguard the 2024 election against misinformation?” PBS News Weekend, Feb. 10, 2024. 
3. “TikTok Says It's Not the Algorithm, Teens Are Just Pro-Palestine,” Vice, Nov. 13, 2023.
4. “I Read Everything Elon Musk Posted for a Week. Send Help.” Mother Jones, May 3, 2024.