TechTank: What’s Next For TikTok?
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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TikTok has become one of the many issues that the Trump administration inherited prior to inauguration. But this is not a new issue for the president. In 2019, Trump addressed the cybersecurity concerns of TikTok when he signed the first executive order elevating them. Five years later, President Biden signed into law a ban on the social media app unless parts of its assets were divested and sold to a U.S. company. Days before Trump’s inauguration, the Chinese company vowed to abide by Biden’s executive order after losing an appeal in the Supreme Court, and in opposition of the law, Trump formally extended the ban 75 days after vowing to do so the day before his inauguration. His actions successfully assuaged the fears of the more than 169 million individual and business users who were worried about their data, including years of video feeds and other content.
What’s next for TikTok? On this episode of The TechTank Podcast, the back and forth may not be over as several billionaires float the idea of purchasing the company. ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, has not budged despite time wounding down on the U.S. acquisition. Further, several Republicans also have expressed disapproval of the president’s intrusion of an extension, suggesting it as an overreach of the president’s authority. Others have suggested that the main goal for the ban on national security is being overlooked.
Co-host of The TechTank Podcast, Nicol Turner Lee, speaks with Darrell West, senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings and Justin Sherman, the founder and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, and author of the forthcoming book, “Navigating Technology and National Security.”
Listen to the episode and subscribe to the TechTank Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or Acast.
