Tick-tock for TikTok

American lawmakers have threatened to ban TikTok unless it’s sold. Uncle Sam has a giant stick, so will likely get what he wants

TikTok is the app that keeps its users up way past their bedtimes. Doom-scrolling through short videos is addictive. That’s how the app has gone from 85m users to 1.6bn in just six years. But politicians have started to lose sleep because of TikTok, too. They’re worried the Chinese state could use it for propaganda. To prevent this, they want to bank the app unless it’s sold to a non-Chinese owner or goes public. So, what would a ban do to TikTok’s value? By 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑎𝑏𝑙’s estimates, it would knock about $25bn—or 67%—off TikTok’s value. That’s a giant stick.

On the one hand, the ban doesn’t make sense because lawmakers’ fears of TikTok are overblown. While the app sucks up users’ data, there is no evidence it takes more than it says. If Chinese spies want to learn about Americans, there are plenty of other ways to get more information than they could from TikTok.

TikTok has created more competition in the social media industry, a market ruled by a few behemoths. A ban would be a massi…