TikTok USDS and Cognitive Warfare: Shifting the Threat Model from External to Internal
A thesis-based reassessment of TikTok’s strategic risk profile: how the USDS (U.S. Digital Security) deal alters the foreign control threat model, and which influence and governance questions remain unresolved.
A thesis-based reassessment of TikTok’s strategic risk profile: how the USDS (U.S. Digital Security) deal alters the foreign control threat model, and which influence and governance questions remain unresolved.
On January 22 to 23, 2026, TikTok and ByteDance confirmed that the long-running U.S. divest-or-ban saga has ended in a new structure: TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, a majority American-owned vehicle intended to keep the app online for more than 200 million U.S. users while addressing national security concerns (Reuters). It is the clearest example so far of how a platform can become a bargaining chip in a great power rivalry, exactly the strategic context in which my master'sthesis was written. In that thesis, I treated TikTok as a potential tool in a shifting U.S.-China power struggle: a platform whose value is not only commercial, but political and cognitive. The NYT frames the announcement as the end of a long legal saga, reminding policymakers of the persistent risks and the importance of ongoing oversight (NYT).