We call this patchwork governance—a layered, improvised mix of law, platform policy, and community intervention.

Gossip, speculation, and call-outs may seem like noise, but they often do the work of protection.

📄 Open access here: doi.org/10.1002/poi3...

Thanks Tom! You're a gem.

Thanks so much, Nathalie!

Thanks Jenny! Out today: www.techpolicy.press/the-tiktok-b...

Thanks to @blakeplease.bsky.social for help thinking through this piece!

Thanks to @techpolicypress.bsky.social for publishing!

What's your theory?

What happens next matters. The TikTok ban raises harder questions we can’t ignore:

Can democratic governance adapt to networked platforms?

What do we lose when policymakers rely on blunt tools like bans?

What happens when platforms embody competing cultural logics?

The TikTok ban reflects a government grasping for control in an ecosystem it doesn’t fully understand.

It’s easier to ban an app than to reckon with the messy realities of:

1. Globalized tech innovation
2. Cross-border data flows
3. Algorithms that shape speech

*This* is the real tension.

This case isn’t about TikTok alone. It’s part of a larger shift:

Tech built elsewhere now shapes US.culture and economy.

The government wants to reassert control.

The platform isn’t the problem—it’s what TikTok represents: the decline of US dominance in digital infrastructure.

TikTok’s case treats its algorithm like a neutral delivery mechanism. It isn’t.

The government fears that mechanism could become a vector for influence. But all platforms—TikTok, Instagram, Facebook—*already* shape speech by design.

So: Is free speech a shield, or a way to avoid accountability?

TikTok leans on free speech protections. The government warns about “potential manipulation.” Here’s the problem:

Platforms don’t just host speech. They organize it—through algorithms, recommendations, and opaque decisions.

Whose “speech” is that? The user’s? The platform’s?

The government argues “ownership = vulnerability.” TikTok says, “No misuse has happened.”

But the deeper issue is harder: Can we separate platforms from the systems that created them?

Platforms reflect where—and how—they were built.

That’s uncomfortable for everyone.

ByteDance’s tech isn’t “made in China”—it’s made through a Chinese model of tech development:

Data-driven, hyper-iterative, ecosystem-based.

The U.S. government frames this as a risk.
TikTok frames it as irrelevant.

Neither framing really tells the full story.

TikTok insists it’s a domestic company with 1A rights. True—on paper.

But this framing masks something real: TikTok is part of a Chinese innovation ecosystem. Its DNA—recommendation algorithms, product strategy—comes from that context.

It’s not neutral, and neither are ANY other platforms.