This post is part of the Kluge Center’s 25 for 25, in honor of the Kluge Center’s 25th anniversary, celebrating 25 books that were written thanks to the Kluge Center’s support. Read the introductory post to the series here.
In 2020, the United States government attempted to force TikTok, the popular social media app owned by Beijing-based Bytedance, to divest its US operations. The Chinese government, in turn, halted divestment negotiations because it considers data a national asset and views the export of algorithms as a potential national security threat. Since then, shifting bans have targeted TikTok, with another pending since January 2025. Why is the US government concerned about a social media app, and why does China treat it as a national resource?
The TikTok dispute reflects a larger battle over digital sovereignty between the United States and China. In her book, Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty (Oxford University Press, 2022), Aynne Kokas, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, introduces her readers to the increasingly pressing issue of data trafficking, her term for the illicit movement of data through commercial platforms for national political gain. She also outlines what is at stake, identifies dangers, and suggests strategies to mitigate the risks posed by this threat.
Data sovereignty is a country’s “control over its national digital infrastructures, technologies, and data,” writes Kokas, and the movement of data from tech firms in the United States to China threatens digital sovereignty not only in the US but around the globe, she explains.
Data trafficking poses many risks. A class-action lawsuit in California alleged that TikTok sent identifiable biometric data to third parties. This type of data could be used to create AI deepfakes and facilitate the spread of misinformation. Ultimately, TikTok settled for $92 million.
In another case, in 2020, the United States forced the LGBTQ+ community social media app Grindr to transfer ownership from the Beijing company Kunlun to the California-based San Vicente Acquisition Partners. The government was concerned that sensitive data, such as HIV status, sexual orientation, personal chats, and photographs, could be trafficked. This data could also have been used to blackmail government or military personnel who shared personal information on the site.
Some platforms have also censored materials based on pressure from China. For example, Kokas recounts that Zoom, a US-based company, terminated the accounts of US and China-based activists who hosted an online event commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre. When the US government investigated these actions, Zoom claimed it was following Chinese law. This incident, argues Kokas, shows that in the face of competing pressures, companies tend to follow the Chinese government’s strict data oversight regulations rather than US law, which are perceived as being less consistently enforced.
While most users may not be concerned about their data being trafficked to China, Kokas shows that the stakes go far beyond personal risk. If large amounts of a nation’s data are captured, she suggests, it can help a potential adversary identify political beliefs, health risks, and economic vulnerabilities. Security risks become even more pronounced when a foreign nation, like China, is also supplying critical infrastructure in communications, health, or agriculture, and could revoke access to that infrastructure at any time.
According to Kokas, China currently holds the upper hand. In the US, she notes, regulators have prioritized growth, enabling “surveillance capitalism,” which allows private entities to analyze online behavior in order to monetize data. In that environment, the growth of the tech sector has been prioritized over consumer protections.
Piecemeal legislation leaves American consumers exposed to both domestic and transnational threats. China, in contrast, strictly regulates tech firms and treats data as a strategic asset, banning US platforms like Facebook and Twitter while gathering massive data sets from American users of Chinese platforms. This puts the US at a disadvantage since large data sets are a key requirement for developing technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Both countries share responsibility for the current state of affairs, according to Kokas. Both exploit consumer data, and the economic ties between the US and China further entrench vulnerabilities in areas ranging from social media to agriculture to space exploration. For example, Chinese access to crop data could allow foreign disruption of US farming infrastructure.
To manage data trafficking threats, Kokas advocates for a “nuanced, multipronged approach that acknowledges political, corporate, and even individual resistance to change.” Drawing inspiration from Stephen Pacala and Robert H. Socolow’s concept of “stabilization wedges,” which are incremental approaches for managing climate change, Kokas suggests implementing similar kinds of adjustments to regulate data flows, for example, via corporate governance and financial market mechanisms. She refers to this set of potential adjustments as “data flow stabilization wedges.” This concept highlights a comparable challenge between climate change and data trafficking: the tension between short-term benefits for consumers and corporations and long-term interests. In both cases, inaction is justified by arguing that large changes require more research, could harm the economy, or could be resolved by future generations. However, unified action focused on incremental solutions, contends Kokas, could make data movement more “predictable and manageable,” especially when sweeping changes are not immediately feasible.
She also calls for action from corporations, governments, and consumers. Most consumers, she suggests, currently cannot consent to the system because they don’t understand it. Consumer education could generate the necessary public buy-in to galvanize efforts to protect data.
Ultimately, institutional interventions must set boundaries on the exchange and sale of consumer, commercial, and government data, contends Kokas. The federal government in the US, she suggests, must work with other democracies to create new operational standards and secure data sovereignty. But this will be difficult, given competing economic and international interests. In the meantime, incentivizing corporations to prioritize data security and informing the public could be useful steps.
Kokas worked on Trafficking Data as a Kluge Fellow in 2019. On July 11, 2023, she was asked to testify before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China to discuss some of the issues she addressed in her book. Trafficking Data won the Bronze Award from the Axiom Business Book Awards, was a Gold Medalist in the 2023 IPPY Awards, and was a finalist for the 2023 Frank Luther Mott-Kappa Tau Alpha Journalism and Mass Communication Research Award.
You can hear Kokas discuss her research here.
You can read more about Kokas’s research at these blogs:
Data and Surveillance in China and the United States
How Distance Learning Could Put Chinese Students at US Universities at Risk
This post, and others in this series, does not constitute the Library’s endorsement of the views of the individual scholar or an endorsement of the publisher.