TikTok - Saravia Frías ENG

Tomas Hobbes established the intellectual foundations of the Modern State. He is more relevant than ever: he was the author of the phrase "autoritas non veritas facem legem" ("authority, not truth, makes the law"), a synthesis of how public opinion is shaped in our time.

The principle of post-truth prevails. What matters is not what is, but what one wants it to be. There are no facts, only beliefs, fueled by dubious claims to authority, most often unscientific and lacking any empirical evidence, driven by the algorithms of platforms and networks.

During this major transformation, a judicial case before the United States Supreme Court could set a landmark precedent: it must decide whether the platform TikTok can refuse to comply with a law requiring it to change its shareholder (currently ByteDance, a Chinese company) or opt for dissolution.

There are several issues at stake that, needless to say, have far-reaching effects worldwide. Argentina's isolation has not been solely economic; we are trapped in a vicious cycle: the poor quality of our political agenda, fueled by trivial controversies on social networks, keeps us entangled in short-term issues, causing us to lose sight of major global changes.

Two constitutional principles are at stake. On one side, a platform with over 170 million users interacting each month invokes freedom of expression. On the other, the U.S. government argues national security, essentially the risk that another state, China, could use the platform to disseminate false or harmful information against its national interests.

The old concept of sovereignty, developed by Hobbes in the XVI century, is gaining more relevance than ever. This is happening in a country where the political force that has just won the elections counts among its key mentors the individual who purchased the Twitter platform, renamed it, and removed controls and restrictions on user expression.

A complex and thought-provoking paradox that reveals the typical contradictions of populism in our time: freedom of expression, as long as it serves one's own purposes, especially electoral ones; sovereignty, only until freedom of expression imposes limits on power through critical discourse.

This may explain why the president-elect of the United States, who was once one of the fiercest advocates for banning TikTok, has now made a symbolic shift, positioning himself among its defenders. Meanwhile, the company has until January 18th to comply or secure a ruling from the Supreme Court to suspend the obligation to sell.

Lessons for Argentina. In a geopolitical scenario that begins to polarize, it is like watching a preview of things to come. And in a country where the debate over the Supreme Court is reduced to a crude struggle for seats with little institutional vision, this case highlights its importance and everything that is at stake.

January 10th, 2025

January 10th, 2025