TikTok Decision Won’t Solve the Real Issue: A One-Sided Digital Playing Field, Says ITIF

WASHINGTON—In response to the Supreme Court decision today in TikTok, Inc. v. Garland to uphold the law that would ban TikTok, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, released the following statement from Vice President Daniel Castro:

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the ban, TikTok’s fate now lies with President-elect Trump and Congress. However, the debate around restricting TikTok is like focusing on a single tree while ignoring the whole forest. By singling out one app, policymakers are missing the larger issue: A digital ecosystem where Chinese-owned apps operate freely in the United States, even as American apps are systematically blocked in China. While it is possible to mitigate security threats from individual Chinese-owned apps on a case-by-case basis, the U.S. urgently needs a coherent economic policy to address the deeper imbalance in digital market access.

The narrow focus on TikTok has distracted from the need for the United States to develop a consistent and comprehensive policy to address broader economic risks from one-sided market access by Chinese tech companies. It’s troubling that policymakers only seem willing to act against China in the techno-economic space by invoking security threats or human rights abuses when they should instead be willing to directly address the systematic economic mercantilism and lack of reciprocity that define the current digital market.

To truly protect U.S. interests, policymakers should turn the page on the debate over TikTok, examine the entire framework of Chinese digital engagement, and demand a fair and reciprocal digital playing field.

Contact: Nicole Hinojosa, [email protected]