Not really. Actually, not at all.

If you look at the top three free apps on the Apple App Store, they are Temu (by Pinduoduo), CapCut, and TikTok (both by ByteDance). If you happen to be an Android person, the top three free apps on Google Play are Temu, TikTok, and SHEIN.

The disconnect between what Washington, DC policymakers say about these apps and what ordinary Americans are downloading onto their smartphones could not be wider.

If we take the DC policy circle perspective at face value, America should be in a national security crisis right now. If we take the behaviors of US smartphone users at face value, then this fear of Chinese-made apps is a giant nothing burger.

Neither is true. My view on all this is more nuanced.

There are legitimate national security, data privacy, and corporate governance concerns with TikTok. Myself and others have been writing about these concerns since mid-2020, when the app became popular in the US, but few understood how it worked. When a whistleblower recently exposed TikTok’s questionable data practices, where China-based engineers had “master admin” access to American user data, I did a lengthy teardown of TikTok’s problems, and also proposed some solutions. While laws have been passed to prohibit TikTok on government devices and a few university campuses, the core problem with TikTok remains unresolved.

Meanwhile, the DC policymaking circle has moved beyond TikTok to construct an all-encompassing worldview where all apps made by Chinese tech companies are bad. In this worldview, whether an app sells cheap fashion (SHEIN), or cheap toys and trinkets (Temu), or is just a video editor (CapCut), they are all national security threats. Not only does this perspective reeks of xenophobia unseen since the Chinese Exclusion Act, it also flies in the face of the struggles of ordinary consumers in a high-inflation environment, who are trying to stretch every dollar they can. Thus, people continue to download these apps, unafraid and unperturbed.

This stark disconnect exposes the tension between a policymaking elite who may actually be right but lacks credibility among its citizens, while the forces of free market capitalism are dictating the winners.

DC’s Credibility Problem

Both ByteDance and Washington, DC have credibility problems. ByteDance’s problems are well-documented, so I won’t belabor them here. DC’s problems are more subtle, especially if you have not personally experienced how power works in Washington (which most people have not, though I happen to have), and more awkward to talk about.

Despite TikTok’s problematic user data practices and the ever-present possibility of Chinese government interference, US legislators, policymakers, and think-tankers have yet to produce any concrete evidence of harm done by the app. Compared to all we know about Russia using Facebook to sway voters in the 2016 election, evidence of TikTok doing harm to the American people or society at large has all been circumstantial and loosely inferred so far. TikTok was a non-factor during the 2022 midterm election despite its popularity. It could be a big factor in the 2024 presidential election, and the Chinese government would want to use it to interfere. But they are all conditionals. That’s precisely where DC’s credibility problem lies – treating “could’s” and “would’s” as real harm.

Meanwhile, other allegations against TikTok inadvertently make the US government look bad. One common narrative is that TikTok’s Chinese version, Douyin, shows only educational content in its “Youth Mode” and has a 40-minute anti-addiction feature. The US version that ByteDance ships is the ultra-addictive “