August 20, 2020
Beyond TikTok: Preparing for Future Digital Threats
By the end of September, the American social media landscape will undergo a profound transformation, and we cannot yet map this new terrain. President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok and messaging and payments app WeChat are aimed at confronting China’s tech enabled illiberalism. This is a worthy goal, but his fitful approach undermines this objective.
Instead, the U.S. government should articulate and adhere to a country-neutral framework that looks beyond TikTok, understanding that actions today might (and ought to) set precedents for tomorrow. While Chinese platforms like TikTok currently present the most pressing use cases, they are only the preface to a much longer plot. Without a smarter approach, American policy will fail to successfully confront fast-growing, foreign-owned digital platforms with systemic data and information security vulnerabilities. Prior to any future executive orders aimed at Chinese companies, the president — with input from the secretaries of state, commerce, and Treasury — should articulate a set of principles-based criterion for this framework. This would help strengthen Washington’s broader efforts to offer an alternative to Beijing’s authoritarian, self-serving vision for the future of the internet.
Read the full op-ed in War on the Rocks.
More from CNAS
-
How Can the Trump Administration Strengthen U.S. AI Leadership?
With a new administration just around the corner, now is the time for the US to strengthen its position as a global leader in AI. Even with changing leadership, there remain n...
By Paul Scharre
-
How China’s Antitrust Tactics Undermine U.S. Tech Leadership
If the United States fails to address this threat, it risks not just losing ground in the technology race, but ceding control over the rules that govern it....
By Ruby Scanlon
-
Sharper: Tariffs
The incoming Trump administration has signaled that tariffs will be a central pillar of its economic strategy, with significant implications for international trade, the Ameri...
By Eleanor Hume, Charles Horn & Gwendolyn Nowaczyk
-
Technology to Secure the AI Chip Supply Chain: A Working Paper
Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems, built and deployed with specialized chips, show vast potential to drive economic growth and scientific progress....
By Tim Fist, Tao Burga & Vivek Chilukuri