This week, over 150 million Americans held their breath as a critical deadline approached.

No, this was not the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president. It was the possibility that social media platform TikTok might be shut down because it didn’t meet the government-imposed deadline to sell the Chinese-owned company to American buyers.

Congress had imposed the deadline for national security reasons.TikTok collects extensive user data—including location, browsing history, and potentially biometric data. It’s algorithm determines what users see based on their behavior.

Unlike other social platforms, TikTok is closely tied to the Chinese government, who has the right to access this information and could potentially use this data to surveil or spy on Americans. Or, they could tweak the algorithm to promote content favorable to Chinese political interests.

But the people panicking because TikTok might be shut down weren’t concerned about that. They were more worried that their status as social media influencers might be disrupted and their incomes reduced or dissipated.

Donald Trump came in with an eleventh-hour stay to try and find a solution to the situation–even before officially inaugurated as president. One possibility was 50-50 ownership between Chinese and American interests. Unfortunately, this would do nothing to prevent the Chinese government gaining access to sensitive information of. hundreds of millions of Americans.

Here’s the problem. All those social media quizzes, contests, and interactive social posts are designed to get us to give up personal information. Yes, our social platform providers know more about us than we often know about ourselves. But do we really want the Chinese government to know all this too?

Tick, tock, tick, tock. . . Boom!

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