Illustration: Kati Szilagyi for Bloomberg Businessweek
Feature
Inside TikTok’s Fight to Avoid a US Ban
Ahead of next week’s showdown in DC over ongoing national security concerns, the Chinese-owned social media app is considering all its options—from going along with a forced sale to taking the offensive.
On Feb. 1, TikTok’s top lobbyists thought the meeting on Capitol Hill was going well. Their slide presentation, which was meant to show how hard TikTok worked to prevent data generated in the US from ending up in China, was capturing the attention of their congressional antagonists— Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat.