US Government May Have Passed On a Golden TikTok Opportunity

The US government may have passed up a golden opportunity to resolve concerns around TikTok’s privacy without banning the app.

President Joe Biden signed a bill in late April that will ban TikTok or force parent company ByteDance to sell its US operations. The passage of the bill comes after years of US officials grappling with what to do with TikTok and include a previous attempt under the Trump administration to force a sale of the platform.

According The Washington Post, the US may have passed up an opportunity to address officials’ concerns without resorting to a ban or forced sale. The outlet reports that ByteDance was willing to let US officials pick the board of directors for its US operations, give the government veto power over hiring, and it would pay a DOD contractor to monitor the company’s source code. To top it off, the company was willing to incorporate a kill switch US officials could use to shut TikTok down.

Although it has failed to explain why, the Biden administration rejected the proposal—known as Project Texas—and pursued the ban/forced sale option instead.

“The government essentially threw up its hands at the possibility of any kind of regulation or cybersecurity measure,” Anupam Chander, a Georgetown University law professor who researches international tech policy, told the Post.

“TikTok proposed this incredible array of protections, but none of it mattered,” he added. “In the government’s thinking, it wasn’t: ‘Can this app be protected?’ It was: ‘There’s a Chinese owner.’ That became the death knell. The government had a complete absence of faith in [its] ability to regulate technology platforms, because there might be some vulnerability that might exist somewhere down the line.”

The government may have an uphill battle defending its decision in court, but the fact that it turned down such a sweeping offer is indicative of just how far officials are willing to go to shut TikTok down in the US.