On the 20th of January 2025, the headline in BBC News: “TikTok restores service in US after Trump pledge”.
This is the Daily Monsoon podcast, and today, let’s talk about TikTok.
Journalist Tom McArthur reports the latest on the TikTok saga.
Under the law passed last April, the US version of the app had to be removed from app stores and web-hosting services if its Chinese owner ByteDance did not sell its US operations.
If you are an American user of TikTok, you probably found life less meaningful without TikTok on Saturday.
Then, on Sunday, you had renewed hope. And your pastor could only wish it was due to his sermon. Instead, it was because Trump said:
I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.
This comes two days after Trump and China’s President Xi had a chat about TikTok, trade, fentanyl and other things. So, Xi Jinping is presumably happy with Trump’s announcement. Why?
Congress banned TikTok because they claimed:
- The app is corrupting the minds of Americans with junk. For the country that exported Jerry Springer to the world, I don’t think America occupies much of a moral high ground here. The better reason is:
- The app is collecting data on American citizens and this data is accessible by the Chinese government. With this data, the Chinese can do all sorts of mischief against the interest of the free world.
Those are the ‘official reasons’, but there may be something more between the lines.
America is trying to hamstring a truly innovative Chinese company, just as it did with Huawei. If it can’t beat them, ban them. And so, the demand for TikTok to change ownership is interpreted as a shrewd ploy to force China to surrender its technological advantage to the US. In summary, America is a bully who plays unfairly to make sure nobody else can win.
What do I think of that? I think it might be true. After all, the whole point of Make America Great Again is to make America number one. Both Biden and Trump’s administration have signalled they see China as a threat. So, it’s not too far-fetched to see this TikTok issue as just another play in the game.
I think arguing from American or Chinese motives is a lazy way to think about the issue. The hard-to-answer question is whether the national security claims are true.
Have you heard this before? The reason why Christians want to get more followers is because they want more power. Once they have power, they can form a government and take over the country. Then, the rest of the citizens will be in trouble. Historically, this has been shown to be true. So evangelism is a threat that must be stopped.
Hmmm… if you go along with that line of reasoning, once you know the ulterior motive for evangelism and the Christian’s supposed grab for power, there is no further need to consider Christianity’s truth claims, right?
Truth claims like: God is Holy. Humans are sinners. Sinners cannot be near God. Thus, when we die, we go to hell. But God so loved us that he gave us his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. And one of the evidence for this claim is Jesus foretold he would die and that three days later, he would rise again. And he did. As witnessed by his disciples and many others.
Every line I said is a truth claim. Christians believe it. Christians invite everyone else to examine, consider and eventually, we hope, come to believe it as well.
So, when it comes to examining the Christian faith, should we consider the truth claims it presents or the nefarious motivations of some of its followers? Let me put it to you: let’s say the followers have really bad motivations, the worst motivations, but the truth claims are actually true. What does that mean to you?
It means you have to look past the guy who is doing a bad job representing the faith and fix your eyes on Jesus Christ. If the truth claims of Christianity are false, the purest motivations simply don’t matter. If the truth claims of Christianity are true, then that is all that matters.
Now that we know how to distinguish between motivations and truth claims, we can apply this approach to the TikTok problem.
We can accept that the American government has less than pure motives with regard to TikTok and China. But the claim that needs to be tested is: does TikTok collect data that is accessible to a foreign power?
If it does, is this a legitimate national security threat?
And if the answer is yes and yes, then it doesn’t really matter what America’s intentions are. The most we can say is TikTok has handed the anti-China crowd an issue to make hay with.
On the other hand, if the answer is “No, TikTok does not collect data”, or “No, the data is not accessible by the Chinese Communist Party”, or “No, even if the data collected and accessible, the average American’s appetite for cat videos is not a national security threat”, then the discussion of motivation is moot.
But getting the yes or no answer is harder. Someone needs to understand the technical details, make the facts known, make it understandable for the man on the street and sustain this campaign over the long term.
It’s not impossible. It’s been done with climate change. What was once new and difficult for the world to understand: ozone layers and CO2 gases and the greenhouse effect, is now taught to five, six-year olds.
If people test truth claims, there will be less manufactured outrage. We can focus on what is important and make better decisions, technological and spiritual.
This is the Daily Monsoon, a podcast where I read the news and make the connection to matters of faith. Thanks for listening.