Fletcher Reads the Newspaper: TikTok: To Block or Not Block?

The Hitachi Center is pleased to co-host this semester’s Fletcher Reads the Newspaper, which convenes a group of interdisciplinary Fletcher experts – our faculty, students, and alumni – to debate a current news topic.

This is a platform for integrating the skills and contextual knowledge that are central to a Fletcher education, where panelists and audience members participate in examining the problem – and the solutions – through multiple disciplinary lenses.

The Biden administration is reportedly asking for the Chinese owners of TikTok to sell their stake in the platform or face a ban. This seems like a drastic step to shut down a platform with 150 million monthly users in the US. Is the threat credible? What are its domestic political and geopolitical consequences? What is lost if we lose TikTok? What is lost if we keep it as is? How might action in the US reverberate elsewhere in the world? Would it splinter the digital planet even further?