“Congress Didn’t Ban TikTok.” That’s the title of Mike Gallagher’s latest column in the Wall Street Journal. The former congressman from Wisconsin is correct that Congress didn’t ban TikTok, it’s doing much worse: Congress is attempting a taking of TikTok.
How we know the above to be true can be found in Gallagher’s column. He writes that “through TikTok, China can gain access to detailed data on hundreds of millions of American users.” Which is true, but it’s also true that the latter won’t change one iota assuming a sale of TikTok “to an owner that isn’t connected to a foreign adversary.”
Does Gallagher seriously believe that prospective purchasers of TikTok not “connected to a foreign adversary” could raise the funds necessary to purchase the innovative social media giant absent selling “detailed data on hundreds of millions users”? Hopefully the question answers itself, at which point it will be more broadly understood that with or without TikTok’s alleged connection “to a foreign adversary,” the information on its American users will remain available to buyers, including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that presently has Gallagher so unsettled.
It ideally awakens readers to a darker reality, that what’s happening to TikTok is decidedly not a ban as Gallagher argues, it’s once again a taking, or put more bluntly, theft. While its owners are largely American contra editorials and opinion pieces (including Gallagher’s) that suggest its owners “are connected to a foreign adversary,” those American owners had the temerity to invest outside the U.S. in technological talent that included the brilliant minds at Beijing-based ByteDance. And it turns out those brilliant minds at ByteDance created a platform that is quite a bit more innovative than that of its American competition.
Which explains the attempt by Congress to force a sale, and why it’s being referred to here as theft. Exactly because TikTok is so popular with Americans, and precisely because what’s so popular with Americans is so valuable to investors, Congress is trying to take for Americans what Americans have so far been unable create on their own.
So, while businesses are sold all the time, the theft of TikTok can be found in legislation that allows the innovator to continue operating stateside, but only if its owners sell. Forget that any sale would largely be Americans to Americans, the theft can be found in the fact that TikTok’s owners don’t want to sell. Yet even if they did, how to negotiate a sale at reasonable price when Congress has attached “sell or face a ban” legislation to any would-be transaction?
Where it becomes even more troubling is Gallagher’s blithe assertion that “Potential purchasers” of TikTok “are waiting in the wings.” As with the title of Gallagher’s column, crucial analysis is left out. For one, if the purchasers had a valid bid for the property they want, why the need for legislation meant to force a sale?
Next, consider the purchaser Gallagher cited as waiting in the wings: Frank McCourt. McCourt formerly owned the Los Angeles Dodgers, and is on a myriad of lists as one of the worst owners in Major League Baseball history.
Consider all of the above in light of Gallagher’s comment that “If TikTok vanishes from app stores this month, ByteDance will have no one to blame but itself.” No, blame Congress for manufacturing fear of foreign authoritarianism to excuse its own, all while legislating a forced sale from owners who would rather not see their creation fall into the hands of those unworthy of its genius.