With a looming potential US ban of the app, TikTok has gone on the offensive by publishing various accounts of how TikTok has helped US businesses, and the American economy more broadly, while also meeting with key ad partners to provide them with explainers and notes in order to dispel concerns about its potential links to the Chinese Government.

Which is likely to have little effect on the US politicians and lawmakers when deciding on the app. Still desperate times…

In the last week, TikTok has promoted a multitude of stories about how the platform has enabled common Americans to transform their hobby into businesses using the application.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has also uploaded two videos to the main TikTok channel in the app, where he asks users to save the app by lobbying their local representatives.
These efforts highlight how close a TikTok ban probably is, given that the platform is doing all it can to address its concerns and change people's opinions about the app.

Which seems somewhat counter-intuitive. If one of the key concerns about TikTok is that the Chinese Government could theoretically use it to influence people's opinions, in an effort to shift public policy in other nations, then using it for exactly that purpose seems to, maybe, highlight that potential, as opposed to quelling it?

In any case, TikTok is pulling out all the stops, desperate to save its business or be forced into an expensive and difficult-sell-off process.

TikTok has been meeting with key ad partners to present them with more information on key concerns about the app, Digiday reports.
This is part of a 5-page Q and A document that TikTok's been providing to advertisers, answering a wide range of questions about the app.

The responses listed here are what you’ve likely read before – TikTok is under US and Singaporean management, TikTok doesn’t censor content on behalf of the CCP, China-based staff will soon be unable to access US user information. The document addresses all the key queries, but the answers on at least some elements remain unconvincing, especially in regards to Chinese staff accessing American user info, which has occurred in the past.

But is this enough for TikTok to be banned?

Look, in some applications, it would make sense to restrict TikTok, mainly when it concerns the devices held by government employees and citizens who, in theory at least, might be manipulated through TikTok data for nasty purposes.

In light of growing global tensions, as China continues to back Russia and remains aggressive toward other countries, there are certainly issues around exposure in this regard, and it makes sense, within that larger context, that TikTok should be curtailed at least until there is some assurance that its US data separation project ('Project Texas') is operative.
There is a broader question, then, around how all social apps track user data, and use that for their own purposes. Given the state of geopolitical affairs, I’m not sure that question, specifically, relates in this instance, but there is clearly a case to be made for broader regulation of user data, and how social platforms utilize such.

Either way, the decision, really, is out of our hands, with US officials now weighing their next steps on the app.