TikTok Has Clarified the "Are Social Media Companies Publishers or Platforms?" Question
The difference matters a lot
What is TikTok? A petrie dish for teenagers’ most vile and horny impulses? Yes, for sure. A child-brain-melting machine more potent than anything Dow Chemical developed in the ‘50s? Yes, that too. But is it an intelligence operation by the Chinese government? THAT is the question. Strangely, evidence from the past week suggests that the answer is: “Yes, but the president is cool with that.”
The TikTok situation has reached Cartoon-Network-1AM-stoner-fodder levels of absurdity. The Supreme Court issued a 9-0 ruling upholding the ban, and though the court doesn’t typically use phrases like “holy shitballs” and “Jesus pants-shitting Christ”, they might have been tempted to do so when describing how TikTok collects data that other social media companies don’t. TikTok collects1 the content of private messages sent through the app, the full content of users’ contacts, and other things that could cause problems for married CIA officers DM-ing squirt emojis to 19 year-old fitness models. TikTok also reportedly hasn’t even looked for a buyer, and the Chinese government probably would approve a sale anyway, which suggests that TikTok is an intelligence operation, not a company. Nonetheless, Trump has asked the Justice Department not to enforce the ban for 75 days, which is probably not something the president can do. We were all wondering how much time would pass between Trump being sworn in and him doing something illegal, and it looks like the answer is: “about three hours”.
I’ve been thinking a lot about TikTok. I’ve come down in favor of a ban if they don’t sell, though the decision wasn’t easy — there are First Amendment issues here that give me pause. But in the course of thinking about TikTok, I’ve gained clarity on a question that’s tripped me up for a decade: Are social media companies better thought of as publishers or platforms? The answer matters — there are policy implications downstream from the answer to that question. And I think I’ve finally settled on an answer.