The End of TikTok

A Chinese-built data nightmare became the most democratic online community ever. And now, as it's about to be shut down in the US, it turns out you can't tell the kids what to do or where to go.

For months Americans have scoffed at the notion that anyone would actually ban their favorite social media. You can’t blame them. By the logic and history of modern surveillance capitalism it truly is unthinkable that a Facebook or X or YouTube would pull the plug on Americans for any reason — there have been many — much less play chicken with U.S. authorities and drive straight into them. But on Sunday, as The Information reports, TikTok doesn’t plan to let the 170 million of us Americans who have the app on our phones just wander around a zombie wasteland, waiting for the app to fill with bugs and break on its own. The company has decided instead to go full fire-cleanse and block us all.

Between now and Sunday it could be that the Supreme Court issues some sort of injunction, or Senator Ed Markey somehow passes the strange reverse Uno card bill he’s proposed, or the billionaire former owner of the LA Dodgers somehow convinces ByteDance to sell. But none of that seems likely, somehow, and so I’m writing this to make peace with the very good possibility that after a career spent writing about the desperate need to regulate technology in general and social media in particular, my favorite online distraction might be killed off by federal authorities, leaving the ones I’ve spent years covering utterly untouched.

Left: my first-ever TikTok. Right: my most popular ever.

I never had a feel for Twitter. The 140 characters and all-day cadence of that platform has never been my medium, and looking back across my stilted, ill-timed tweets the Jacob Ward I see there isn’t one I recognize or especially enjoy. Instagram, as any serious media person can tell you, is built for celebrities, and the only reliable way to get attention there is to pay for it. YouTube is a vast ocean of noise, and full of eddies and currents that will drag you to islands you do not want to visit. (Still, follow me everywhere! I’m “byjacobward” on all platforms! Like and follow! Lolz!)

I love nothing more than peeking into cultures I will likely never see in person, however, and I have spent the best part of my career speaking extemporaneously on current events, so as both an audience member and as a creator TikTok was very, very much my jam.

Roughly one night a week my wife and I had a 30-minute session before bed in which I’d show her the TikToks I’d bookmarked For Julie. She says this is the best way to experience a social media feed — have it curated by the person you’re closest to. I did usually have her number, and, increasingly, so did TikTok. She loves to watch an adult eat it on the ice, on a hike, in a parade. We share a love for aging rappers putting babies to sleep or freestyling on their way home from work. And personally, I like the inspirational stuff, like the famous barber who travels from city to city donating his skills to strangers, and the endless parade of smart, angry tech folks who escaped the industry.

The trouble, I’ve learned, is that alcoholics shouldn’t become bartenders (I’ve been both), and people who can’t stop scrolling really shouldn’t be creators. I hope I remember the incredible creativity on TikTok, but unfortunately I’ll probably best remember the pleasant woman with the soothing voice who pops up around 11pm each evening under the TikTok banner to ask me “Are you scrolling instead of sleeping again? Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.” It’s the official warning from TikTok that I’ve overdone it, and should quit for the night. (And when your dealer thinks you’ve had enough, people, you know you’re addicted, and they know you’ll be back tomorrow.)

“Are you scrolling instead of sleeping again?” The TT spokesperson I faced most nights after literally hours of scrolling.

But the people I encountered while posting my work on TikTok were deeply gratifying. While Twitter, for instance, is a nightmare of abusive language and surprisingly resourceful and motivated stalkers (and I suffered far less of this stuff than have my female colleagues), TikTok was like safe harbor. People actively thanked me by the hundreds. When anything abusive began, the folks in the comments would leap in and shut the offender down. And time and again I found fascinating, thoughtful people thanks to the suggestions and introductions made by my viewers there.

As a technology journalist TikTok was a tremendous blessing. I found a young cadre of Canadian truckers who’d put electric motors into their rigs. I met a Detroit factory owner seeking to bring a Japanese-style mini-pickup to the US. But then I discovered that those two actually knew one another through TikTok, and clearly I’d been fed the one because I’d engaged so much with the content of the other. Turns out the company’s algorithmic curation was also, in a sense, curating my work at a major national news outlet, a realization that I found chilling. So I eased back on looking for stories that way.