https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/business/tiktok-ban.html
在最高法院作出裁决之前，他们嘲笑美国对这款中国拥有的应用程序的国家安全担忧。
上周，美国最高法院外的一张贴纸和一枚别针表达了对 TikTok 的支持。
作者：Madison Malone KircherSapna Maheshwari 和 Sheera Frenkel
2025 年 1 月 16 日发布2025 年 1 月 17 日更新
在过去一周，来自美国各地的用户开始在 TikTok 上发布这些视频。
他们都拿同一件事开玩笑：这款应用与中国的联系如何使其成为国家安全威胁。许多人暗示，他们的 TikTok 账户都被指派了一名中国政府特工通过该应用监视他们——用户会想念他们的私人间谍。
“愿我们来世再相见，”一位用户在一段视频中写道，视频背景是惠特尼·休斯顿翻唱的多莉·帕顿的《我将永远爱你》。视频中包括一张人工??智能生成的中国军官图像。
这些视频只是 TikTok 每月 1.7 亿美国用户中的一些人的反应之一，他们准备让这款应用最早在周日从美国消失。
最高法院将对一项联邦法律作出裁决，该法律要求 TikTok 的中国所有者字节跳动在 1 月 19 日之前出售该应用，否则将在美国被禁。美国官员表示，中国可能会利用 TikTok 收集美国人的私人数据并传播秘密的虚假信息。 TikTok 曾表示出售是不可能的，并对法律提出质疑，目前正在等待最高法院的回应。
法官可能会支持这项法律，这在应用程序上引发了明显的悲伤和黑色幽默。一些用户发布了视频，建议使用技术手段规避禁令。其他人则下载了另一款中国应用程序小红书（也称为“Red Note”），以嘲笑美国政府对 TikTok 与中国关系的担忧。
这些视频凸显了去年国会在广泛支持下通过的法律与 TikTok 的日常用户之间在网上发生的冲突，他们对这款应用可能很快就会消失感到沮丧。
“现在我的 TikTok 动态消息中，大部分都是 TikTokers 嘲笑美国政府，TikTokers 感谢他们的中国间谍，以此作为一种嘲笑，”乔治城大学法学和技术教授、新技术全球监管专家 Anupam Chander 说。 “TikTok 用户意识到他们不太可能被任何人操纵。他们实际上对自己收到的信息相当了解。”
TikTok 拒绝就用户提及其与中国的关系发表评论。
一些用户不愿意轻易放弃这款应用——或者他们所谓的间谍。
据《纽约时报》报道，过去一周，数百个 TikTok 视频记录了青少年如何继续在美国使用该应用。其中最流行的方法之一是使用 VPN，即虚拟专用网络，它可以掩盖用户的位置，使其看起来好像用户在其他地方。
TikTok 用户 Sasha Casey 在最近发布的一段视频中表示：“他们实际上不能在美国禁止 TikTok，因为 VPN 并没有被禁止。”该视频获得了超过 6 万次点赞。“使用 VPN。并在使用时向国会发送一张照片，因为我会这么做。”
虽然 VPN 可以让手机、笔记本电脑或其他电子设备看起来位于远程位置，但目前尚不清楚该技术是否可以规避禁令。设备的真实位置存储在许多地方，包括用于下载 TikTok 的应用商店。
许多 TikTok 用户下载了另一款中国社交媒体应用小红书。图片来源：Adek Berry/法新社 — Getty Images
TikTok 粉丝似乎也是小红书突然流行起来的原因，小红书是周二和周三美国 Apple Store 下载次数最多的免费应用。中国有数亿人使用这款应用，它和 TikTok 一样，以短视频和基于文本的帖子为特色。小红书在普通话中的意思是“小红书”。
Chander 先生预计最高法院本周将维持禁令，但他相信 TikTok 胜诉。他说，Red Note 和中国间谍表情包的下载表明，许多美国人不同意政府的安全担忧，尤其是以牺牲言论自由为代价。
“当美国关闭一项大规模的言论自由服务时，我们的民主盟友并没有关闭这项服务，这将使我们成为审查者，并使我们处于压制言论的不寻常境地，”钱德先生说。“这将使使用 TikTok 的美国人真正不相信美国政府代表他们的最佳利益。”
麦迪逊·马龙·基尔彻 (Madison Malone Kircher) 是《纽约时报》记者
互联网文化。更多关于 Madison Malone Kircher 的信息
Sapna Maheshwari 报道 TikTok、技术和新兴媒体公司。她从事商业记者工作已有十多年。请通过 sapna@nytimes.com 与她联系。更多关于 Sapna Maheshwari 的信息
Sheera Frenkel 是驻旧金山湾区的记者，报道技术如何影响日常生活，重点关注社交媒体公司，包括 Facebook、Instagram、Twitter、TikTok、YouTube、Telegram 和 WhatsApp。更多关于 Sheera Frenkel 的信息
On TikTok, Users Mock Looming U.S. Ban
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/business/tiktok-ban.html
Ahead of a Supreme Court ruling, they are mocking U.S. national security concerns about the Chinese-owned app.
A sticker and a pin pronounced support for TikTok outside the U.S. Supreme Court last week.Credit...Caroline Gutman for The New York Times
Follow live updates on the Supreme Court ruling against TikTok.
Over the last week, the videos started appearing on TikTok from users across the United States.
They all made fun of the same thing: how the app’s ties to China made it a national security threat. Many implied that their TikTok accounts had each been assigned an agent of the Chinese government to spy on them through the app — and that the users would miss their personal spies.
“May we meet again in another life,” one user wrote in a video goodbye set to Whitney Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” The video included an A.I.-generated image of a Chinese military officer.
The videos were just one way that some of TikTok’s 170 million monthly U.S. users were reacting as they prepared for the app to disappear from the country as soon as Sunday.
Over the last week, the videos started appearing on TikTok from users across the United States.
They all made fun of the same thing: how the app’s ties to China made it a national security threat. Many implied that their TikTok accounts had each been assigned an agent of the Chinese government to spy on them through the app — and that the users would miss their personal spies.
“May we meet again in another life,” one user wrote in a video goodbye set to Whitney Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” The video included an A.I.-generated image of a Chinese military officer.
The videos were just one way that some of TikTok’s 170 million monthly U.S. users were reacting as they prepared for the app to disappear from the country as soon as Sunday.
The Supreme Court is set to rule on a federal law that required TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the app by Jan. 19 or face a ban in the United States. U.S. officials have said China could use TikTok to harvest Americans’ private data and spread covert disinformation. TikTok, which has said a sale is impossible and challenged the law, is now awaiting the Supreme Court’s response.
The possibility that the justices will uphold the law has set off a palpable sense of grief and dark humor across the app. Some users have posted videos suggesting ways to circumvent a ban with technological workarounds. Others have downloaded another Chinese app, Xiaohongshu, also known as “Red Note,” to thumb their noses at the U.S. government’s concerns about TikTok’s ties to China.
The videos highlight the collision taking place online between the law, which Congress passed with wide support last year, and everyday users of TikTok, who are dismayed that the app may soon disappear.
The possibility that the justices will uphold the law has set off a palpable sense of grief and dark humor across the app. Some users have posted videos suggesting ways to circumvent a ban with technological workarounds. Others have downloaded another Chinese app, Xiaohongshu, also known as “Red Note,” to thumb their noses at the U.S. government’s concerns about TikTok’s ties to China.
The videos highlight the collision taking place online between the law, which Congress passed with wide support last year, and everyday users of TikTok, who are dismayed that the app may soon disappear.
“Much of my TikTok feed now is TikTokers ridiculing the U.S. government, TikTokers thanking their Chinese spy as a form of ridicule,” said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University and an expert on the global regulation of new technologies. “TikTokers recognize that they are not likely to be manipulated by anyone. They are actually quite sophisticated about the information they’re receiving.”
TikTok declined to comment on the users’ references to its ties to China.
Some users are not willing to give up the app — or their supposed spies — so easily.
Hundreds of TikTok videos over the last week have cataloged how teenagers could keep using the app in the United States, according to a review by The New York Times. One of the most popular methods described is the use of a VPN, or a virtual private network, which can mask a user’s location and make it appear that the person is elsewhere.
“They can’t actually ban TikTok in the U.S. because VPNs are not banned,” Sasha Casey, a TikTok user, said in a recent video that was liked over 60,000 times. “Use a VPN. And send a picture to Congress while you do it, because that’s what I’ll be doing.”
While VPNs can make it appear that a phone, a laptop or another electronic device is in a remote location, it is not clear if the technology can circumvent the ban. A device’s real location is stored in many places, including in the app store that was used to download TikTok.
Many TikTok users have downloaded another Chinese social media app, Xiaohongshu, or “Red Note.”Credit...Adek Berry/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Some users are not willing to give up the app — or their supposed spies — so easily.
Hundreds of TikTok videos over the last week have cataloged how teenagers could keep using the app in the United States, according to a review by The New York Times. One of the most popular methods described is the use of a VPN, or a virtual private network, which can mask a user’s location and make it appear that the person is elsewhere.
“They can’t actually ban TikTok in the U.S. because VPNs are not banned,” Sasha Casey, a TikTok user, said in a recent video that was liked over 60,000 times. “Use a VPN. And send a picture to Congress while you do it, because that’s what I’ll be doing.”
While VPNs can make it appear that a phone, a laptop or another electronic device is in a remote location, it is not clear if the technology can circumvent the ban. A device’s real location is stored in many places, including in the app store that was used to download TikTok.
Many TikTok users have downloaded another Chinese social media app, Xiaohongshu, or “Red Note.”Credit...Adek Berry/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
TikTok fans also seem to be behind the sudden surge in popularity for Xiaohongshu, the most downloaded free app on Tuesday and Wednesday in the U.S. Apple Store. Hundreds of millions of people in China use the app, which, like TikTok, features short videos and text-based posts. Xiaohongshu means “little red book” in Mandarin.
Mr. Chander anticipates that the Supreme Court will uphold the ban law this week, though he believes that TikTok has the winning case. He said the downloads of Red Note and the Chinese spy memes showed that many Americans did not agree with their government’s security concerns, particularly at the expense of free speech.
“When the United States shutters a massive free expression service, which our democratic allies have not shuttered, it will make us the censor and put us in the unusual position of silencing expression,” Mr. Chander said. “It will make Americans who use TikTok really distrustful of the U.S. government as carrying their best interests.”
“When the United States shutters a massive free expression service, which our democratic allies have not shuttered, it will make us the censor and put us in the unusual position of silencing expression,” Mr. Chander said. “It will make Americans who use TikTok really distrustful of the U.S. government as carrying their best interests.”
Madison Malone Kircher is a Times reporter covering internet culture. More about Madison Malone Kircher
Sapna Maheshwari reports on TikTok, technology and emerging media companies. She has been a business reporter for more than a decade. Contact her at sapna@nytimes.com. More about Sapna Maheshwari
Sheera Frenkel is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology impacts everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp. More about Sheera Frenkel
