The Fall of TikTok and the Rise of the American Cyber Dome

My media! It's gone!

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve really enjoyed TikTok since downloading it during the initial Covid lockdowns, and it’s brought me a lot of laughter, information, and “demented shit” as my girlfriend would put it. But TikTok’s final day came and went here in the States a few weeks ago, and after 12 hours of going dark, Trump ended up giving the app another 75 days of life (a move that was likely made to curry some favor, even though the ban was his idea in the first place). ByteDance will still have to sell the app to an American company to keep it around, and as of writing this, you still can’t download it on American app stores (but you can buy an iPhone with it downloaded from eBay for a few thousand dollars, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me).

While content creators and doom scrollers said their goodbyes and promoted their other socials, it’s unlikely that the app is here to stay for long after the extension is up, as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) act that was signed into public law last year aims to “protect” Americans from "foreign adversary controlled applications.” And even if it does come back after the extension, it’s the algorithm that our government takes issue with, so if TikTok is bought by some American company then the algorithm would likely be a lot different.

All this to say that we’re entering a new era of American media consumption, and all your Chinese faves are in the crosshairs. My fellow gamers are likely familiar with juggernauts like Fortnite and League of Legends, which have both raked in billions since their inception and are also tied to the Chinese-owned/operated Tencent (which owns Riot Games, League’s parent company, and has a 40% stake in Epic Games, Fortnite’s parent company). As of now, both companies have headquarters in the States, and PAFACA is aimed directly at foreign social media companies at the moment, so it’s not a guarantee that they will be banned. But Trump’s supermajority, and tariffs that went into effect today, don’t exactly bode well for the future of any media that isn’t American-owned.

Our government really just wants Meta, Alphabet, and Musk (who are beholden to American shareholders and government interests) to be our only options when it comes to internet use and social media, which would be pretty bleak considering how shitty Instagram, Facebook, and X are at the moment. If you haven’t been on X recently, “free speech” has taken the form of racist schizo-posting and Musk reply-guys, and Zuckerberg’s super masculine and badass appearance on Rogan/reversal of fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram is a clear sign that these tech oligarchs are more than happy to play ball.

It seems a bit extreme to claim this is “the death of social media as we’ve come to know it”, but the writing is on the wall, with Americans downloading another Chinese-owned social media app (Red Note) en masse to share pictures of their cats and migrating to platforms like Bluesky and Substack (please subscribe!). The worst-case scenario is the rise of an American cyber wall similar to China’s, where anything on social media criticizing our government’s actions will be censored, but at the very least, we should expect a watered-down version of the social media landscape we’ve come to know, and when that’s done, movies, TV, and video games will likely be next.