china – Page 5

As NASA faces cuts, China reveals ambitious plans for planetary exploration

china, NASA, Planetary exploration, Space / Rejus Almole / March 28, 2025

All of these grand Chinese plans come as NASA faces budget cuts. Although nothing is final, Ars reported earlier this year that some officials in the Trump administration want to cut science programs at the US space agency by as much as 50 percent, and that would include significant reductions for planetary science. Such cuts, one planetary officials told Ars, would represent an “extinction level” event for space science and exploration in the United States.

This raises the prospect that the United States could cede the lead in space exploration to China in the coming decades.

So what will happen?

To date, the majority of China’s space science objectives have been successful, bringing credibility to a government that sees space exploration as a projection of its soft power. By becoming a major actor in space and surpassing the United States in some areas, China can both please its own population and become a more attractive partner to other countries around the world.

However, if there are high-profile (and to some in China’s leadership, embarrassing) failures, would China be so willing to fund such an ambitious program? With the objectives listed above, China would be attempting some unprecedented and technically demanding missions. Some of them, certainly, will face setbacks.

Additionally, China is also investing in a human lunar program, seeking to land its own astronauts on the surface of the Moon by 2030. Simultaneously funding ambitious human and robotic programs would very likely require significantly more resources than the government has invested to date. How deep are China’s pockets?

It’s probably safe to say, therefore, that some of these mission concepts and time frames are aspirational.

At the same time, the US Congress is likely to block some of the deepest cuts in planetary exploration, should they be proposed by the Trump administration. So NASA still has a meaningful future in planetary exploration. And if companies like K2 are successful in lowering the cost of satellite buses, the combination of lower-cost launch and planetary missions would allow NASA to do more with less in deep space.

The future, therefore, has yet to be won. But when it comes to deep space planetary exploration, NASA, for the first time since the 1960s, has a credible challenger.

As NASA faces cuts, China reveals ambitious plans for planetary exploration Read More »

The early 2000s capacitor plague is probably not just a stolen recipe

capacitor, capacitor plague, capacitors, china, CPUs, dell, HP, Japan, Motherboards, single-core CPU, Taiwan, Tech / Rejus Almole / March 21, 2025

It’s a widely known problem with roots in urban legend: Devices with motherboards failing in the early 2000s with a sudden pop, a gruesome spill, or sometimes a burst of flames. And it was allegedly all due to one guy who didn’t copy a stolen formula correctly.

The “capacitor plague” of the early 2000s was real and fairly widespread among devices, even if the majority of those devices didn’t go bad at the same time or even in the same year. The story of this widespread failure, passing between industry insider stories and media reports, had a specific culprit, but also a broad narrative about the shift from Japanese to Taiwanese manufacturers and about outsourcing generally.

The Asianometry channel on YouTube recently dug into the “capacitor plague” in a video that asks, “What happened to the capacitors in 2002?” and comes to some informed, broad, and layered answers. It explains the specifics of what’s happening inside both a working capacitor and the faulty models, relays the reporting on the companies blamed and affected, and, crucially, puts the plague in the wider context of hotter chips, complex supply chains, counterfeits, and, sure, some industrial sabotage.

“We will never know what exactly happened, but let’s try,” the host says at the start. It is recommended you follow along.

“What Happened to the Capacitors in 2002?” by Asianometry.

Without replicating too much of the video and larger mythos, the basic story is that, according to various disputed timelines, electrolytic capacitors put into electronics between 1999 and 2003 or so failed in dire ways from 2002 through (perhaps) 2007. Boards and computers bought from Abit, HP, IBM, and, infamously, Dell, among others, suffered these faulty capacitors and were handled with recalls, repairs, or, sometimes, silence.

A finely balanced cocktail

The “Low equivalent series resistance,” or “low impedance” aluminum capacitors at issue, contained an electrolyte solution that, when doing its job, served as a cathode and kept the paper separating two files inside the rolled-up capacitor saturated. Because the electrolyte is roughly 70 percent water, and the capacitor could take on wider fluctuations of voltage, it became a cheap, popular component in many devices.

The early 2000s capacitor plague is probably not just a stolen recipe Read More »

Trump should block Biden’s AI “gift” to China, Microsoft argues

AI chips, china, Donald Trump, Export controls, microsoft, national security, Policy / Rejus Almole / February 28, 2025

“Countries including Brazil, India, Israel, and the UAE are eminently capable of ramping up investments aimed at securing new ways to access increased computing capacity,” the Brookings Institute said. “Preventing companies in middle-tier countries from relying on the US to supply computing chips is a surefire way to push them into building non-US alliances that include stronger technology ties with China.”

The rule could also complicate the global AI landscape in ways the US may not anticipate, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization, forecast last week. It could “breed resentment, not cooperation” in tier-two countries that will likely “bristle at the fact that their AI ambitions depend on Washington’s goodwill and that they are being deliberately kept a generation behind the frontier,” CSIS wrote. And it could drive more open source AI like DeepSeek to be key to development in tier-two nations, perhaps further endangering US global leadership in AI, CSIS suggested.

“Ironically, the AI Diffusion Framework, meant to lock in American advantage, may instead midwife the very outcome it sought to prevent—an alternate AI stack and increased open-source development where China, as its most prolific contributor, emerges as the de facto leader,” CSIS reported.

China wooing countries targeted by rule, Microsoft says

But according to Smith, some parts of the rule should be preserved, like datacenter restrictions, including “qualitative provisions” that “ensure that AI technology components are deployed in certified, secure, and trusted datacenters.” That part of the rule, Smith suggested, “helps reduce the risk of chip diversion to China.”

And other parts of the rule can be strengthened, Smith wrote, such as ensuring the Commerce Department has resources to enforce it and “expedite approvals” for any countries in the middle tier who may appeal to either move into the top tier or limit tier-two restrictions.

Trump should block Biden’s AI “gift” to China, Microsoft argues Read More »

Privacy-problematic DeepSeek pulled from app stores in South Korea

AI, bytedance, china, DeepSeek, deepthink, infosec, llm, privacy / Kris Guyer / February 17, 2025

In a media briefing held Monday, the South Korean Personal Information Protection Commission indicated that it had paused new downloads within the country of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s mobile app. The restriction took effect on Saturday and doesn’t affect South Korean users who already have the app installed on their devices. The DeepSeek service also remains accessible in South Korea via the web.

Per Reuters, PIPC explained that representatives from DeepSeek acknowledged the company had “partially neglected” some of its obligations under South Korea’s data protection laws, which provide South Koreans some of the strictest privacy protections globally.

PIPC investigation division director Nam Seok is quoted by the Associated Press as saying DeepSeek “lacked transparency about third-party data transfers and potentially collected excessive personal information.” DeepSeek reportedly has dispatched a representative to South Korea to work through any issues and bring the app into compliance.

It’s unclear how long the app will remain unavailable in South Korea, with PIPC saying only that the privacy issues it identified with the app might take “a considerable amount of time” to resolve.

Western infosec sources have also expressed dissatisfaction with aspects of DeepSeek’s security. Mobile security company NowSecure reported two weeks ago that the app sends information unencrypted to servers located in China and controlled by TikTok owner ByteDance; the week before that, another security company found an open, web-accessible database filled with DeepSeek customer chat history and other sensitive data.

Ars attempted to ask DeepSeek’s DeepThink (R1) model about the Tiananmen Square massacre or its favorite “Winnie the Pooh” movie, but the LLM continued to have no comment.

Privacy-problematic DeepSeek pulled from app stores in South Korea Read More »

OpenAI’s secret weapon against Nvidia dependence takes shape

AI, AI chips, Biz & IT, Broadcom, chatgpt, chatgtp, china, GPUs, machine learning, NVIDIA, openai, Reuters, Richard Ho, sam altman, Taiwan, TSMC, US government / Mike M. / February 10, 2025

OpenAI is entering the final stages of designing its long-rumored AI processor with the aim of decreasing the company’s dependence on Nvidia hardware, according to a Reuters report released Monday. The ChatGPT creator plans to send its chip designs to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) for fabrication within the next few months, but the chip has not yet been formally announced.

The OpenAI chip’s full capabilities, technical details, and exact timeline are still unknown, but the company reportedly intends to iterate on the design and improve it over time, giving it leverage in negotiations with chip suppliers—and potentially granting the company future independence with a chip design it controls outright.

In the past, we’ve seen other tech companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta, create their own AI acceleration chips for reasons that range from cost reduction to relieving shortages of AI chips supplied by Nvidia, which enjoys a near-market monopoly on high-powered GPUs (such as the Blackwell series) for data center use.

In October 2023, we covered a report about OpenAI’s intention to create its own AI accelerator chips for similar reasons, so OpenAI’s custom chip project has been in the works for some time. In early 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also began spending considerable time traveling around the world trying to raise up to a reported $7 trillion to increase world chip fabrication capacity.

OpenAI’s secret weapon against Nvidia dependence takes shape Read More »

DeepSeek is “TikTok on steroids,” senator warns amid push for government-wide ban

AI, app ban, CCP, china, china mobile, Chinese Communist Party, DeepSeek, FCC, government ban, Policy / Kris Guyer / February 6, 2025

But while the national security concerns require a solution, Curtis said his priority is maintaining “a really productive relationship with China.” He pushed Lutnick to address how he plans to hold DeepSeek—and the CCP in general—accountable for national security concerns amid ongoing tensions with China.

Lutnick suggested that if he is confirmed (which appears likely), he will pursue a policy of “reciprocity,” where China can “expect to be treated by” the US exactly how China treats the US. Currently, China is treating the US “horribly,” Lutnick said, and his “first step” as Commerce Secretary will be to “repeat endlessly” that more “reciprocity” is expected from China.

But while Lutnick answered Curtis’ questions about DeepSeek somewhat head-on, he did not have time to respond to Curtis’ inquiry about Lutnick’s intentions for the US AI Safety Institute (AISI)—which Lutnick’s department would oversee and which could be essential to the US staying ahead of China in AI development.

Viewing AISI as key to US global leadership in AI, Curtis offered “tools” to help Lutnick give the AISI “new legs” or a “new life” to ensure that the US remains responsibly ahead of China in the AI race. But Curtis ran out of time to press Lutnick for a response.

It remains unclear how AISI’s work might change under Trump, who revoked Joe Biden’s AI safety rules establishing the AISI.

What is clear is that lawmakers are being pressed to preserve and even evolve the AISI.

Yesterday, the chief economist for a nonprofit called the Foundation for the American Innovation, Samuel Hammond, provided written testimony to the US House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, recommending that AISI be “retooled to perform voluntary audits of AI models—both open and closed—to certify their security and reliability” and to keep America at the forefront of AI development.

“With so little separating China and America’s frontier AI capabilities on a technical level, America’s lead in AI is only as strong as our lead in computing infrastructure,” Hammond said. And “as the founding member of a consortium of 280 similar AI institutes internationally, the AISI seal of approval would thus support the export and diffusion of American AI models worldwide.”

DeepSeek is “TikTok on steroids,” senator warns amid push for government-wide ban Read More »

Tariffs may soon spike costs of cars, household goods, consumer tech

auto industry, Canada, china, Donald Trump, mexico, Policy, tariffs, us-china trade war / Mike M. / February 3, 2025

“A little pain”: Trump finally admits tariffs heap costs on Americans.

Canadian and American flags are seen at the US/Canada border March 1, 2017, in Pittsburg, New Hampshire. Credit: DON EMMERT / Staff | AFP

Over the weekend, President Trump issued executive orders heaping significant additional tariffs on America’s biggest trading partners, Canada, China, and Mexico.

To justify the tariffs—”a 25 percent additional tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10 percent additional tariff on imports from China”—Trump claimed that all partners were allowing drugs and immigrants to illegally enter the US. Declaring a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trump’s orders seemed bent on “downplaying” the potential economic impact on Americans, AP News reported.

But very quickly, the trade policy sparked inflation fears, with industry associations representing major US firms from many sectors warning of potentially derailed supply chains and spiked consumer costs of cars, groceries, consumer technology, and more. Perhaps the biggest pain will be felt by car buyers already frustrated by high prices if car prices go up by $3,000, as Bloomberg reported. And as Trump eyes expanding tariffs to the European Union next, January research from the Consumer Technology Association showed that imposing similar tariffs on all countries would increase the cost of laptops by as much as 68 percent, game consoles by up to 58 percent, and smartphones perhaps by 37 percent.

With tariffs scheduled to take effect on Tuesday, Mexico moved fast to negotiate a one-month pause on Monday, ABC News reported. In exchange, Mexico promised to “reinforce” the US-Mexico border with 10,000 National Guard troops.

The pause buys Mexico a little time to convince the Trump administration—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and potentially Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick—to strike a “permanent” trade deal, ABC News reported. If those talks fall through, though, Mexico has indicated it will retaliate with both tariff and non-tariff measures, ABC News reported.

Even in the best-case scenario where no countries retaliate, the average household income in 2025 could drop by about $1,170 if this week’s new tariffs remain in place, an analysis from the Budget Lab at Yale forecast. With retaliation, average income could decrease by $1,245.

Canada has already threatened to retaliate by imposing 35 percent tariffs on US goods, although that could change, depending on the outcome of a meeting this afternoon between Trump and outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Currently, there’s seemingly tension between the Trump administration and Trudeau, however.

On Saturday, Trudeau called Trump’s rationale for imposing tariffs on Canada—which Trudeau noted is responsible for less than 1 percent of drugs flowing into the US—”the flimsiest pretext possible,” NBC News reported.

This morning, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, reportedly criticized Canada’s response on CNBC. While Mexico is viewed as being “very, very serious” about Trump’s tariffs threat, “Canadians appear to have misunderstood the plain language of the executive order and they’re interpreting it as a trade war,” Hassett said.

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to lower prices of groceries, cars, gas, housing, and other goods, AP News noted. But on Sunday, Trump clearly warned reporters while boarding Air Force One that tariffs could have the opposite effect, ABC News reported, and could significantly worsen inflation the longer the trade policy stands.

“We may have short term, some, a little pain, and people understand that, but, long term, the United States has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world,” Trump said.

Online shoppers, car buyers brace for tariffs

In addition to imposing new tariffs on these countries, Trump’s executive orders also took aim at their access to the “de minimus” exemption that allows businesses, including online retailers, to send shipments below $800 into the US without being taxed. That move could likely spike costs for Americans using popular Chinese retail platforms like Temu or Shein.

Before leaving office, Joe Biden had threatened in September to alter the “de minimus” rule, accusing platforms like Temu or Shein of flooding the US with “huge volumes of low-value products such as textiles and apparel” and making “it increasingly difficult to target and block illegal or unsafe shipments.” Following the same logic, it seems that Trump wants to exclude Canada, China, and potentially Mexico from the duty-free exemption to make it easier to identify illegal drug shipments.

Temu and Shein did not respond to Ars’ request to comment. But both platforms in September told Ars that losing the duty-free exemption wouldn’t slow their growth. And both platforms have shifted business to keep more inventory in the US, CNBC reported.

Canada is retaliating, auto industry will suffer

While China has yet to retaliate to defend such retailers, for Canada, the tariffs are considered so intolerable that the country immediately ordered tariffs on beverages, cosmetics, and paper products flowing from the US, AP News reported. Next up will be “passenger vehicles, trucks, steel and aluminum products, certain fruits and vegetables, beef, pork, dairy products, aerospace products, and more.”

If the trade wars further complicate auto industry trade in particular, it could hurt US consumers. Carmakers globally saw stocks fall on expectations that Trump’s tariffs will have a “profound impact” on the entire auto industry, CNBC reported. And if tariffs expand into the EU, an Oxford Economics analysis suggested, the cost of European cars in the US market would likely increase while availability decreases, perhaps crippling a core EU market and limiting Americans’ choice in vehicles.

EU car companies are already bracing for potential disruptions. A spokesperson for Germany-based BMW told CNBC that tariffs “hinder free trade, slow down innovation, and set a negative spiral in motion. In the end, they are detrimental to customers, making products more expensive and less innovative.” A Volkswagen spokesperson confirmed the company was “counting on constructive talks between the trading partners to ensure planning security and economic stability and to avoid a trade conflict.”

Right now, Canada’s auto industry appears most spooked by the impending trade war, with the president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, Flavio Volpe, warning that Canada’s auto sector could “shut down within a week,” Bloomberg reported.

“At 25 percent, absolutely nobody in our business is profitable by a long shot,” Volpe said.

According to Bloomberg, nearly one-quarter of the 16 million cars sold in the US each year will be hit with duties, adding about $60 billion in industry costs. Seemingly the primary wallet drain will be car components that cross the US-Canada and US-Mexico borders “as many as eight times during production” and, should negotiations fail, could be getting hit with tariffs both ways. Tesla, for example, relies on a small parts manufacturer in Canada, Laval Tool, to create the molds for its Cybertruck. It already costs up to $500,000 per mold, Bloomberg noted, and since many of the mold components are sourced from Canada currently, that cost could go up at a time when Cybertruck sales already aren’t great, InsideEVs reported.

Tariffs “necessary”

William Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former US trade official, told AP News that Trump’s new tariffs on raw materials disrupting the auto industry and others don’t seem to “make much economic sense.”

“Historically, most of our tariffs on raw materials have been low because we want to get cheaper materials so our manufacturers will be competitive … Now, what’s he talking about? He’s talking about tariffs on raw materials,” Reinsch said. “I don’t get the economics of it.”

But Trump has maintained that tariffs are necessary to push business into the US while protecting national security. Industry experts have warned that hoping Trump’s tariffs will pressure carmakers to source all car components within the US is a “tough ask,” as shifting production could take years. Trump seems unlikely to back down any time soon, instead asking already cash-strapped Americans to be patient with any rising costs potentially harming businesses and consumers.

“We can play the game all they want,” Trump said.

But to countries threatening the US with tariffs in response to Trump’s orders, it likely doesn’t feel like a game. According to AP News, the Ministry of Commerce in China plans to file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization for the “wrongful practices of the US.”

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Tariffs may soon spike costs of cars, household goods, consumer tech Read More »

In Apple’s first-quarter earnings, the Mac leads the way in sales growth

Apple, china, earnings, ipad, IPhone, Mac, Q1, Tech, tim cook / Paul Patrick / January 30, 2025

Apple fell slightly short of investor expectations when it reported its first-quarter earnings today. While sales were up 4 percent overall, the iPhone showed signs of weakness, and sales in the Chinese market slipped by just over 11 percent.

CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that the iPhone performed better in countries where Apple Intelligence was available, like the US—seemingly suggesting that the slip was partially because Chinese consumers do not see enough reason to buy new phones without Apple Intelligence. (He also said, “Half of the decline is due to a change in channel inventory.”) iPhone sales also slipped in China during this same quarter last year; this was the first full quarter during which the iPhone 16 was available.

In any case, Cook said the company plans to roll out Apple Intelligence in additional languages, including Mandarin, this spring.

Apple’s wearables category also declined slightly, but only by 2 percent.

Despite the trends that worried investors, Apple reported $36.33 billion in net revenue for the first quarter. That’s 7.1 percent more than last year’s Q1. This was driven by the Mac, the iPad, and Services (which includes everything from Apple Music to iCloud)—all of which saw slight upticks in sales. Services was up 14 percent, continuing a strong streak for that business, while the Mac and the iPad both jumped up 15 percent.

The uptick in Mac and iPad sales was likely helped by several new Mac models and a new iPad mini starting shipments last October.

Cook shared some other interesting numbers in the earnings call with investors and the press: The company has an active base of 2.35 billion devices, and it has more than 1 billion active subscriptions.

In Apple’s first-quarter earnings, the Mac leads the way in sales growth Read More »

Trump can save TikTok without forcing a sale, ByteDance board member claims

bytedance, china, china tariffs, Donald Trump, elon musk, Policy, tiktok, TikTok ban, us-china trade war, World Economic Forum / Mike M. / January 23, 2025

TikTok owner ByteDance is reportedly still searching for non-sale options to stay in the US after the Supreme Court upheld a national security law requiring that TikTok’s US operations either be shut down or sold to a non-foreign adversary.

Last weekend, TikTok briefly went dark in the US, only to come back online hours later after Donald Trump reassured ByteDance that the US law would not be enforced. Then, shortly after Trump took office, he signed an executive order delaying enforcement for 75 days while he consulted with advisers to “pursue a resolution that protects national security while saving a platform used by 170 million Americans.”

Trump’s executive order did not suggest that he intended to attempt to override the national security law’s ban-or-sale requirements. But that hasn’t stopped ByteDance, board member Bill Ford told World Economic Forum (WEF) attendees, from searching for a potential non-sale option that “could involve a change of control locally to ensure it complies with US legislation,” Bloomberg reported.

It’s currently unclear how ByteDance could negotiate a non-sale option without facing a ban. Joe Biden’s extended efforts through Project Texas to keep US TikTok data out of China-controlled ByteDance’s hands without forcing a sale dead-ended, prompting Congress to pass the national security law requiring a ban or sale.

At the WEF, Ford said that the ByteDance board is “optimistic we will find a solution” that avoids ByteDance giving up a significant chunk of TikTok’s operations.

“There are a number of alternatives we can talk to President Trump and his team about that are short of selling the company that allow the company to continue to operate, maybe with a change of control of some kind, but short of having to sell,” Ford said.

Trump can save TikTok without forcing a sale, ByteDance board member claims Read More »

Cutting-edge Chinese “reasoning” model rivals OpenAI o1—and it’s free to download

AI, AI censorship, AI reasoning, Biz & IT, china, Chinese AI, DeepSeek, deepseek R1, large language models, machine learning, o1, o3, openai, OpenAI o1, simulated reasoning, SR models / Tim Belzer / January 21, 2025

Unlike conventional LLMs, these SR models take extra time to produce responses, and this extra time often increases performance on tasks involving math, physics, and science. And this latest open model is turning heads for apparently quickly catching up to OpenAI.

For example, DeepSeek reports that R1 outperformed OpenAI’s o1 on several benchmarks and tests, including AIME (a mathematical reasoning test), MATH-500 (a collection of word problems), and SWE-bench Verified (a programming assessment tool). As we usually mention, AI benchmarks need to be taken with a grain of salt, and these results have yet to be independently verified.

A chart of DeepSeek R1 benchmark results, created by DeepSeek. Credit: DeepSeek

TechCrunch reports that three Chinese labs—DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI’s Kimi—have now released models they say match o1’s capabilities, with DeepSeek first previewing R1 in November.

But the new DeepSeek model comes with a catch if run in the cloud-hosted version—being Chinese in origin, R1 will not generate responses about certain topics like Tiananmen Square or Taiwan’s autonomy, as it must “embody core socialist values,” according to Chinese Internet regulations. This filtering comes from an additional moderation layer that isn’t an issue if the model is run locally outside of China.

Even with the potential censorship, Dean Ball, an AI researcher at George Mason University, wrote on X, “The impressive performance of DeepSeek’s distilled models (smaller versions of r1) means that very capable reasoners will continue to proliferate widely and be runnable on local hardware, far from the eyes of any top-down control regime.”

Cutting-edge Chinese “reasoning” model rivals OpenAI o1—and it’s free to download Read More »

TikTok loses Supreme Court fight, prepares to shut down Sunday

bytedance, china, Donald Trump, First Amendment, free speech, national security, Online speech, Policy, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, tiktok, TikTok ban / Paul Patrick / January 17, 2025

TikTok has said it’s preparing to shut down Sunday.

A TikTok influencer holds a sign that reads “Keep TikTok” outside the US Supreme Court Building as the court hears oral arguments on whether to overturn or delay a law that could lead to a ban of TikTok in the U.S., on January 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Kayla Bartkowski / Stringer | Getty Images News

TikTok has lost its Supreme Court appeal in a 9–0 decision and will likely shut down on January 19, a day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, unless the app can be sold before the deadline, which TikTok has said is impossible.

During the trial last Friday, TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco warned SCOTUS that upholding the Biden administration’s divest-or-sell law would likely cause TikTok to “go dark—essentially the platform shuts down” and “essentially… stop operating.” On Wednesday, TikTok reportedly began preparing to shut down the app for all US users, anticipating the loss.

But TikTok’s claims that the divest-or-sell law violated Americans’ free speech rights did not supersede the government’s compelling national security interest in blocking a foreign adversary like China from potentially using the app to spy on or influence Americans, SCOTUS ruled.

“We conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights,” the SCOTUS opinion said, while acknowledging that “there is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community.”

Late last year, TikTok and its owner, the Chinese-owned company ByteDance, urgently pushed SCOTUS to intervene before the law’s January 19 enforcement date. Ahead of SCOTUS’ decision, TikTok warned it would have no choice but to abruptly shut down a thriving platform where many Americans get their news, express their views, and make a living.

The US had argued the law was necessary to protect national security interests as the US-China trade war intensifies, alleging that China could use the app to track and influence TikTok’s 170 million American users. A lower court had agreed that the US had a compelling national security interest and rejected arguments that the law violated the First Amendment, triggering TikTok’s appeal to SCOTUS. Today, the Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

According to SCOTUS, the divest-or-sell law is “content-neutral” and only triggers intermediate scrutiny. That requires that the law doesn’t burden “substantially more speech than necessary” to serve the government’s national security interests, rather than strict scrutiny which would force the government to protect those interests through the least restrictive means.

Further, the government was right to single TikTok out, SCOTUS wrote, due to its “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects.”

“Preventing China from collecting vast amounts of sensitive data from 170 million US TikTok users” is a “decidedly content agnostic” rationale, justices wrote.

“The Government had good reason to single out TikTok for special treatment,” the opinion said.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew posted a statement on TikTok reacting to the ruling, thanking Trump for committing to “work with TikTok” to avoid a shut down and telling users to “rest assured, we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives” in the US.

Momentum to ban TikTok has shifted

First Amendment advocates condemned the SCOTUS ruling. The American Civil Liberties Union called it a “major blow to freedom of expression online,” and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s civil liberties director David Greene accused justices of sweeping “past the undisputed content-based justification for the law” to “rule only based on the shaky data privacy concerns.”

While the SCOTUS ruling was unanimous, justice Sonia Sotomayor said that “precedent leaves no doubt” that the law implicated the First Amendment and “plainly” imposed a burden on any US company that distributes TikTok’s speech and any content creator who preferred TikTok as a publisher of their speech.

Similarly concerned was justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote in his concurring opinion that he harbors “serious reservations about whether the law before us is ‘content neutral’ and thus escapes ‘strict scrutiny.'” Gorsuch also said he didn’t know “whether this law will succeed in achieving its ends.”

“But the question we face today is not the law’s wisdom, only its constitutionality,” Gorsuch wrote. “Given just a handful of days after oral argument to issue an opinion, I cannot profess the kind of certainty I would like to have about the arguments and record before us. All I can say is that, at this time and under these constraints, the problem appears real and the response to it not unconstitutional.”

For TikTok and content creators defending the app, the stakes were incredibly high. TikTok repeatedly denied there was any evidence of spying and warned that enforcing the law would allow the government to unlawfully impose “a massive and unprecedented speech restriction.”

But the Supreme Court declined to order a preliminary injunction to block the law until Trump took office, instead deciding to rush through oral arguments and reach a decision prior to the law’s enforcement deadline. Now TikTok has little recourse if it wishes to maintain US operations, as justices suggested during the trial that even if a president chose to not enforce the law, providing access to TikTok or enabling updates could be viewed as too risky for app stores or other distributors.

The law at the center of the case—the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act—had strong bipartisan support under the Biden administration.

But President-elect Donald Trump said he opposed a TikTok ban, despite agreeing that US national security interests in preventing TikTok spying on or manipulating Americans were compelling. And this week, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced a bill to extend the deadline ahead of a potential TikTok ban, and a top Trump adviser, Congressman Mike Waltz, has said that Trump plans to stop the ban and “keep TikTok from going dark,” the BBC reported. Even the Biden administration, whose justice department just finished arguing why the US needed to enforce the law to SCOTUS, “is considering ways to keep TikTok available,” sources told NBC News.

“What might happen next to TikTok remains unclear,” Gorsuch noted in the opinion.

Will Trump save TikTok?

It will likely soon be clear whether Trump will intervene. Trump filed a brief in December, requesting that the Supreme Court stay enforcement of the law until after he takes office because allegedly only he could make a deal to save TikTok. He criticized SCOTUS for rushing the decision and suggested that Congress’ passage of the law may have been “legislative encroachment” that potentially “binds his hands” as president.

“As the incoming Chief Executive, President Trump has a particularly powerful interest in and responsibility for those national-security and foreign-policy questions, and he is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means,” Trump’s brief said.

TikTok’s CEO Chew signaled to users that Trump is expected to step in.

“On behalf of everyone at TikTok and all our users across the country, I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” Chew’s statement said.

Chew also reminded Trump that he has 60 billion views of his content on TikTok and perhaps stands to lose a major platform through the ban.

“We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives,” Chew said.

Trump seemingly has limited options to save TikTok, Forbes suggested. At trial, justices disagreed on whether Trump could legally decide to simply not enforce the law. And efforts to pause enforcement or claim compliance without evidence that ByteDance is working on selling off TikTok could be blocked by the court, analysts said. And while ByteDance has repeatedly said it’s unwilling to sell TikTok US, it’s possible, one analyst suggested to Forbes, that ByteDance might be more willing to divest “in exchange for Trump backing off his threat of high tariffs on Chinese imports.”

On Tuesday, a Bloomberg report suggested that China was considering whether selling TikTok to Elon Musk might be a good bargaining chip to de-escalate Trump’s attacks in the US-China trade war.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

TikTok loses Supreme Court fight, prepares to shut down Sunday Read More »

RedNote may wall off “TikTok refugees” to prevent US influence on Chinese users

censorship, china, Policy, rednote, social media censorship, tiktok, TikTok ban, Xiaohongshu / Rejus Almole / January 16, 2025

Whether TikTok will be banned in the US in three days is still up in the air. The Supreme Court has yet to announce its verdict on the constitutionality of a law requiring TikTok to either sell its US operations or shut down in the US. It’s possible that the Supreme Court could ask for more time to deliberate, potentially delaying enforcement of the law as TikTok has requested until after Donald Trump takes office.

While the divest-or-sell law had bipartisan support when it passed last year, momentum has seemingly shifted this week. Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced a bill to extend the deadline ahead of a potential TikTok ban, and a top Trump adviser, Congressman Mike Waltz, has said that Trump plans to stop the ban and “keep TikTok from going dark,” the BBC reported. Even the Biden administration, whose justice department just finished arguing why the US needed to enforce the law to SCOTUS, “is considering ways to keep TikTok available,” sources told NBC News.

Many US RedNote users quickly banned

For RedNote and China, the app’s sudden popularity as the US alternative to TikTok seems to have come as a surprise. A Beijing-based independent industry analyst, Liu Xingliang, told Reuters that RedNote was “caught unprepared” by the influx of users.

To keep restricted content off the app, RedNote allegedly has since been “scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools,” two sources familiar with the company told Reuters. Time’s reporting echoed that, noting that “Red Note is urgently recruiting English content moderators [Chinese]” became a trending topic Wednesday on the Chinese social media app Weibo.

Many analysts have suggested that Americans’ fascination with RedNote will be short-lived. Liu told Reuters that “American netizens are in a dissatisfied mood, and wanting to find another Chinese app to use is a catharsis of short-term emotions and a rebellious gesture.” But unfortunately, “the experience on it is not very good for foreigners.”

On RedNote, Chinese users have warned Americans that China censors way more content than they’re used to on TikTok. Analysts told The Washington Post that RedNote’s “focus on shopping and entertainment means it is often even more active in blocking content seen as too serious for the app’s target audience.” Chinese users warned Americans not to post about “politics, religion, and drugs” or risk “account bans or legal repercussions, including jail time,” Rest of World reported. Meanwhile, on Reddit, Americans received additional warnings about common RedNote scams and reasons accounts could be banned. But Rest of World noted that many so-called “TikTok refugees” migrating to RedNote do not “seem to know, or care, about platform rules.”

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