I’m not the first to note the irony of TikTok users flooding RedNote this week. The TikTok divest-or-ban rule was supposed to drive Americans away from a foreign-owned social network that was subject to influence or data harvesting by the Chinese government. Instead, it pushed them onto a different foreign-owned social network that poses the exact same hypothetical risks — and that might be subject to the exact same kind of ban.
TikTok faces a ban under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed last year by President Joe Biden (who is reportedly experiencing some buyer’s remorse right now). While it mentions TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, by name, it could apply to any company that meets the following criteria:
- It operates a website or app with more than 1 million monthly users and lets those users make accounts to create and share content.
- It isn’t a service that primarily lets users “post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.”
- It’s controlled by a foreign adversary, a definition that covers North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran….
