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I’ve never had an opinion on TikTok. It is Chinese-owned and reportedly dominated by the Chinese government. Its algorithms have been alleged to advance left-wing themes. At the same time, it is popular with many millions of Americans. My daughters use it. And my organization posts videos on TikTok. One of our videos, of an African-American mother testifying against a far-left “Ethnic Studies” bill, got two million views, starting on TikTok and migrating to X. So how bad can the algorithms be?

Earlier this year, Congress passed a law that would ban TikTok unless the company is sold. The deadline is coming up in January, and the case–TikTok v. Garland–is now in the Supreme Court. Former law professor Ann Althouse covers the legal status. TikTok, of course, argues that the Act violates the First Amendment. So far, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected that argument.

Of course, the debate over TikTok is part of the larger debate over government influence on social media. Given what we now know about the Democratic Party’s successful efforts to suppress anti-regime content on American social media platforms, it is hard to get too exercised over potential Chinese influence, which is likely to be both less effective and less malign.

One interesting aspect of TikTok’s Supreme Court appeal is that Donald Trump has filed an amicus brief. Is there any precedent for this? I am confident there isn’t. Trump’s brief supports neither party to the appeal, neither TikTok nor the federal government. Rather, it encourages the Court to delay a decision in order to allow the Trump administration to act. This is Ann Althouse:

Excerpt [from a New York Times article]:

Adopting a distinctive tone at odds with the sober and measured arguments more typical in Supreme Court advocacy, the brief instead touted Mr. Trump’s expertise.

“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” the brief said.

The brief doesn’t merely tout Trump’s expertise, it stresses the constitutional role of the President — all Presidents — in matters of foreign affairs.

An important point.

All of that said, I still don’t have a clear opinion on TikTok or on this case. The one thing I strongly believe is that interference in our elections, and influence on social media, on the part of our own government–the FBI, the CIA, various other federal agencies, the White House–is 1,000 times more dangerous than such “interference” or influence by foreign powers like the Chinese or the Russians.