TikTok's long way of the cross to be loved by Washington

It is the last straw. The social network that went the furthest to protest the controversial new national security law imposed on Hong Kong is ... owned by a Chinese group. TikTok, the short video sharing app that is all the rage among teens and pre-teens, announced on Tuesday July 7 that it will withdraw from semi-autonomous territory in the coming days. Its American competitors - Twitter, Facebook, Instagram - decided to stay, while specifying that they would refuse any requests from the Chinese authorities to access the data collected on Hong Kong users.

TikTok's attitude could be expensive for Bytedance, the parent company based in China. "Like all other Chinese tech groups, it needs government approvals to operate in China," said the Wall Street Journal. Challenging the authorities on such a sensitive issue as the status of Hong Kong can complicate the renewal of the precious sesame.

Risk of prohibition in the United States

But choosing TikTok can also pay big dividends in the United States. The social network hopes, indeed, to return in the good graces of Washington which took it in flu. Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, announced that he is "seriously considering banning" TikTok in the United States during an interview with conservative Fox News on July 6. 

>> Read also on France 24: Bytedance, the Chinese start-up ready to conquer the world

"If you want your personal information to end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, use TikTok," said the head of the American diplomacy. The accusation of being a Beijing Trojan is not new. In reality, it has been more than a year that American political leaders, both in the Republican and Democratic camp, have asked for more severity with regard to this young social network, launched only three years ago and used by plus 25 million Americans.

It all started with an investigation into TikTok's content moderation practices, published in September 2019 by the British daily The Guardian. The London newspaper was able to obtain lists of non-grata subjects on the platform, which more or less coincided with the concerns of the Chinese authorities (separatism, social movements). TikTok replied that these rules were no longer in force and dated from a time when the group wanted, above all, to promote “fun” content. But the Guardian's revelations confirmed an article published a month earlier by the Washington Post, which was surprised at the notable absence of content relating to the social unrest in Hong Kong at a time when, however, the demonstrations were raging there.

It was not enough for American officials to decide to bring TikTok into the club of the big bad Chinese wolves, alongside the electronics giant Huawei and the telecom group ZTE. At the request of Republican senators Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton, supported by the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate Chuck Schumer, an official investigation was launched in November 2019 to find out if TikTok posed a threat to American national security.

These politicians were not only concerned with censorship. The other problem comes “from a Chinese law of 2017 which obliges Chinese groups to cooperate in the case of an intelligence operation,” recalls the American site Vox. In other words, the fear is that Beijing will be able to access all the personal information of American TikTok users.

From “made in China” to “made in USA”

The social network, on the defensive, may have repeated after each accusation that the data collected in the United States is stored on American soil and in Singapore and therefore does not fall under Chinese law, and that the group is a separate entity Bytedance with its own premises in the United States and its own leaders, nothing helped. 

TikTok then went on the offensive, redoubling its efforts to appear as American as possible. Bytedance has recruited several US officials, and has reduced the amount of Chinese content appearing in the American user feed, the Wall Street Journal has learned. He would also have thought of expanding his activities in other Asian countries, to give himself a more international character, and would even think of changing the name of his app in the United States.

>> Read also on France 24: K-pop and TikTok: Trump's meeting in Tulsa victim of a campaign of militant adolescents?

In June, the social network went into high gear by acquiring, for the first time, an American CEO. Kevin Mayer, a Disney alumnus, was tasked with better identifying content likely to appeal to an American audience and, above all, “reassuring [American political leaders, NDR] that the group will be managed according to American standards. ”, Underlines Philippe Laffont, a boss of hedge funds who sits on the board of directors of Bytedance, interviewed by the Financial Times. 

The decision to withdraw from Hong Kong is just the continuation of this large-scale seduction campaign aimed at the American administration and public opinion. A gesture that should not affect the finances of the social network. With barely 150,000 users, the semi-autonomous territory does not weigh heavily in terms of audience. In addition, Hong Kongers addicted to short videos can fall back on Doyun, the official version of TikTok for the Chinese market.

Objective: IPO

However, this withdrawal is a strong signal since TikTok shows, for the first time, that it is ready to align itself with Washington's positions in diplomatic battles with China. 

Why so much effort? Bytedance indeed takes the risk of arousing the ire of Beijing for the beautiful eyes of a country, the United States, which represents barely 4% of its global audience. 

The reason for this belly dance is, in fact, in three letters: IPO, the acronym for initial public offering, that is to say an IPO. Bytedance, currently the most “expensive” start-up in the world (its value is estimated at 76 billion dollars), intends to reap the benefits of its strong growth by taking its first steps on the financial markets as quickly as possible, potentially from this year.

To attract as many investors as possible, TikTok “needs to appear as a social network present on a global scale”, underlines the Financial Times. "And without the United States, it is simply not possible," confirms a former executive of the Chinese group to the British financial daily. 

The American market is also essential for the group's future growth. “Currently, 90% of their income comes from in-app purchases in China. But this market is saturated and other Chinese giants, such as Tencent and Alibaba, are determined to compete with Bytedance in the short video niche. The best option for continuing to grow by attracting new users is to grab market share in the United States, ”said The Wall Street Journal. 

TikTok hopes that all these efforts will end up paying off. But with an American president like Donald Trump, always eager to find new scapegoats to feed his anti-Chinese rhetoric, nothing is less certain. This is the whole risk of the Bytedance strategy: whoever sought to be loved by all may end up being rejected by both Washington and Beijing. 

The France 24 week summary invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 app