I deleted TikTok about a year ago. After checking my screen time and seeing the unfathomable amount of hours I had spent scrolling through the app I decided to uninstall it to hopefully make me more productive.
Now the time I spent doom scrolling on TikTok is split between Instagram reels and, embarrassingly enough, the occasional YouTube shorts binge.
Needless to say, I wasn’t too interested in the app’s ensuing national ban. However, after my sister showed me the notification about the app shutting down at the dinner table on Saturday night, and then shared her functional ‘For You’ page over Sunday morning breakfast, my curiosity was piqued.
The app was banned across the country and unbanned in a matter of hours, both caused by the same 45th and 47th President, Donald Trump.
That’s the first piece of misinformation being spread, sort of.
Talk of banning TikTok actually dates back to 2019 when Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIIE) published a report calling it a security issue.
After this the first prominent government official to suggest the ban was Trump’s then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2020. A few weeks after Pompeo made this statement Trump himself called for a TikTok ban.
Unfortunately for Trump his term ended before the ban could be implemented. His idea was actually succeeded by Joe Biden who signed the ban in April of 2024.
At this point the app has been declared a national security issue because of its ties to China. So now we’re forced to ask the question, is TikTok a Chinese app?
First of all, should we care that it’s a Chinese app? Yes actually.
If it’s true the app is being used by a foreign government to harvest data in America, that presents a security risk in the form of U.S. government officials having the app. When people bring up TikTok being a security issue they’re not talking about ordinary people using the app.
Government officials have sensitive information on their phones, which they probably don’t want another country’s government taking a peek at.
The first “version” of the app was “Douyin” available exclusively in China still today. This app was created by ByteDance, who you may recognize as the parent company of TikTok.
TikTok was then created by ByteDance as a sister version of Douyin for the global market. The apps have the same appearance and function but the two are completely separate, you can’t search for an account on Douyin on TikTok and vice versa.
Okay so that settles it. The company who made TikTok is Chinese, so the app is Chinese.
Eh, kind of.
ByteDance is undoubtedly a Chinese company. Its headquarters are located in Beijing and its primary investors and higher ups are all Chinese citizens. However, ByteDance is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and also has offices in the rest of the world.
Incorporating the Cayman Islands isn’t really out of the ordinary. Many companies do it because it’s considered “heaven” for corporations looking for low taxes, benefits and confidentiality.
Even so there’s other strange things about TikTok which make it difficult to definitively label the app. TikTok was incorporated in California, it is legally a separate company owned by ByteDance.
The CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, is known to be Singaporean. Also an important distinction to make is that Chew became part of the company in 2021. Chew was in no way involved with the formation of TikTok back in 2016. Additionally TikTok’s headquarters are located in Los Angeles and Singapore with offices around the globe.
It’s easy to see why all this information added together makes the situation complicated.
One last important thing to note about the management situation is the Chinese government holds a “golden share” in ByteDance. A golden share is a stake in a company that’s usually about 1% and “sometimes involve a board seat or other rights, [and] allow[s] the government to gain access to online data and monitor these companies’ business activities.”
In summary, TikTok is a company made by a Chinese company, however, it’s headquartered outside of China with a CEO who is not a Chinese citizen, but the Chinese government does have a stake in the parent company.
Take that as you will.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this entire situation is the rapid spread of misinformation related to the app and its ban. We are living in a digital age where mountains of information are available at our fingertips and yet it’s a nightmarish task to sort through all of it, or rather, it’s not a nightmarish task but many people treat it like one. Many people would probably rather not read through and understand the complexities of TikTok’s origin and simply desire a one word answer.
