The editorial department, as opposed to the news department, today prints a very long guest essay by Jameel Jaffer and Genevieve Lakier, who both have legal backgrounds in Chicago. It is entitled, “The Supreme Court Must Intervene in the TikTok Case.” These two are complete unknowns to most people involved in China watching, myself included. And they fall into a simplistic mindset by arguing that the D.C. Court of Appeals got it wrong by upholding a law passed by Congress and signed by President Biden. Therefore the Supreme Court must get involved.
The reality is that TikTok is one of the most sophisticated algorithms ever created and it is being used by the Chinese to engage in cognitive warfare. Many of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok get their news feeds on TikTok. The app can customize the content different individuals receive. It can monitor their whereabouts and see all their contacts and any other apps on their phones. It can be literally addictive, which is one reason the Chinese don’t allow it in their own country!
The heart of the argument by Jameel and Lakier, which is hardly original, is that banning TikTok (because a sale seems very unlikely) would be a violation of America’s First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech and free speech in general. That amendment was intended to apply to Americans and American institutions talking to and communicating with each other. It was never intended to cover a foreign government’s efforts to monitor and confuse million of Americans. It is a weapon of non-kinetic war being wielded by a foreign adversary. It must be stopped for U.S. national security.
This isn’t the first time the editorial page has run pro-Chinese essays. They ran one arguing that panda exchanges could save U.S.-Chinese relations and another by an opera singer who wrote about how lovely it was to sing on a tour in China. These are not serious, well-informed voices. Why does the Times editorial department insist on running these puff pieces? Is it because they fear retribution against Chinese-Americans if the United States wakes up to the true depth of China’s challenge? Whatever the reason, they are at sharp odds with their own news columns on the front page that have documented so many Chinese actions that can only be considered hostile to American interests.
