How Family Solicitors Can Help Resolve Legal Issues
January 22, 2025(1) Introduction
TikTok v. the USA in Congress, courts, and public opinion represents a critical episode in a long struggle between states and corporations. Until a few decades ago, it made very little sense to interrogate whether multi-national corporations were more powerful than the state. Yet, the territory has shifted, with the ‘exponential’ impact (Azhar, 2021) of cryptocurrency, mass social media, Large Language Models (LLMs), Generative AI, and ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff, 2019). Amidst the satire, humour, and outcry surrounding the TikTok ban, the time has come to ask whether corporations can meaningfully challenge states, an inquiry of both interest and trepidation.
(2) The era of ‘Big Tech’: tipping the balance?
For centuries, there has been little reason to even compare states and corporations. Since its formulation as the nation-state, the state has monopolised several forms of power from which corporations were entirely excluded. The most illustrative example is ‘normative’ power: the state is the unquestioned model through which the globe is organised, and what the state legislates, states, and does is taken as near absolute in its authority and legitimacy (Philips and Sharman, 2020).
What, if anything, has changed? The state still seems to be the commanding model for global politics. The state still seems to be the body making laws, commanding armies, and controlling markets. Prima facie, corporations do not seem to have made any massive strides on these battlegrounds, or within these traditional dimensions of power. Yet simply because traditional forms of power are well-established, it does not follow that these are and will always be the only forms of power. Where novel forms of power are emerging, they are monopolised not by the state, but by ‘Big Tech’ MNCs: Apple, Google, Nvidia, Amazon, OpenAI, Facebook, Huawei, and ByteDance to name but a few (Zuboff, 2019). Thus, it is as appropriate a time as any to take stock of the balance of power between the state and ‘Big Tech’ corporations.
(a) Finance, currency, and markets
Historically, a significant fetter on corporate autonomy and ability to act independently of the state was state control of currency. Yet, with the growth of cryptocurrencies, the possibility for financial power independent of state control has emerged and, in June 2019, Facebook itself discussed plans for its own ‘Libra’ currency (Papazoglou, 2019).
There also exists a question of raw financial power. At present, the wealth of ‘Big Tech’ corporations is astonishing and the prospective intangible value encapsulated within algorithms, data, and technological systems is immense. According to statistics generated by the Financial Times (17/01/2025), Apple (AAPL) has a market cap of $3.46 trillion; Nvidia $3.37 trillion; Microsoft Corp $3.29 trillion; Alphabet Inc. (the parent company of Google) $2.41 trillion; Amazon $2.38 trillion; and Meta $1.55 trillion. To place this in relative context, the World Bank (19/01/2025) reports that – in 2023 – the state with the eighth highest total GDP by US dollar (Italy) had a GDP of approximately $2.3 trillion. With the qualification that market capitalisation should not be directly compared with total GDP, these statistics are enough to at least illustrate that there is strong competition between these MNCs and many states in financial terms. However, it must be emphasised that this is only relevant to some states. The UK had a GDP valued at approximately $3.38 trillion in 2023, whereas the US and China had GDP totals of $27.72 trillion and $17.794 trillion respectively (World Bank, 19/01/2025). Moreover, until state dominance of currency and legal enforcement shifts, any financial advantage means little in absolute terms.
(b) Force
When using a strict definition of force, the state is still overwhelmingly dominant, commanding armies and enforcing laws in a manner corporations cannot even echo at a minor level (Abrahamsen, 2011). However, ‘force’ need not only refer to physical violence (Farrell and Newman, 2019). If the collection of data, control of digital infrastructure, command of the internet, or code can be instrumentalised with aggression, then ‘Big Data’ corporations possess an incredible latent power in this regard. Such cyberwarfare is far from alien or fictitious, with examples including Cambridge Analytica’s electoral interference, ‘digital salvoes’ against Estonia, the Russian ‘Sandworm’ attack on ‘Ukraine’s banking system’ (2017), and the ‘Shaman’ attack impacting on Saudia Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar (Azhar, 2021).
(c) Territory and community: multinational and transnational
Often, it is taken as self-evident that territory, space, and the formation of nations is the exclusive preoccupation of the nation-state. To a significant degree, this is still accurate. Yet, on this level of power, corporations have some degree of power that is often overlooked. Crucially, MNCs have by definition a multi- or trans-national reach that, by definition, transcends the borders of states. Crucially, the advantage of such global reach is the speed at which MNCs can accumulate it. Facebook took on ‘one million users in just 15 months’, with ‘2.5 billion users at the end of 2019’, while KakaoTalk accumulated ‘two million Koreans’ (‘4% of the country’) ‘within two weeks’ (Azhar, 2021, p.27).
Moreover, while corporations do not form nations, they do command communities of users. Yet further, Facebook, TikTok, and Google actively create such communities and mould identities through ‘user preference’ algorithms, recommendation systems, and ‘content moderation’ (Zuboff, 2019). As Zuboff (2019) has put it, ‘personalisation’ is ‘conquest’, and Google’s ‘predictive search’ has become so powerful that it can now ‘anticipate’ and ‘modify’ behaviour, rather than merely collect it.
(d) Normative power
Corporations have begun to gain power at the level of ideas, both in their perceived centrality to societies and their control over truth, narratives, and political dialogue. On the one hand, the normative power of MNCs like Google (Alphabet) and Facebook (Meta) is defined by their embeddedness within what is perceived as ‘the norm’. TikTok, Facebook, and X have become the accepted media through which political discussion, news, reality, liberty, dialogue, and community are understood. Notably, ‘30% of people under the age of 30 get their news’ via TikTok (Kokas, 2022) and ‘17% of all US adults regularly get news’ through the same platform (Galer, 2025). Without these platforms and as proved by the pending ban, the social outcry or rage would be significant if these platforms simply disappeared. On the other hand, as highlighted in the concerns of the US Congress regarding TikTok, the control of ‘Big Data’ MNCs over content moderation and search engine filtration, results, and prioritisation affords them enormous control over the framing of fact, truth, and reality.
(e) Innovation: data as power
Regarding novel forms of power, there is no dimension more notable than the power inherent in data and algorithms. Far from mere technology, ‘data’ and ‘technology’ can be understood as a form of wealth, resource, or power (Kwet, 2019). The mass ‘extraction, commodification, and control’ of user data by ‘Big Tech’ corporations (Zuboff, 2015, p.75), combined with its exploitation and mobilisation in ‘new markets of behavioural production and modification’ (Zuboff, 2015, p.75) represents a degree of power that can only grow. Crucially, the state is not the source of this innovation. Instead, it is largely dependent on technological MNCs to even catch-up. With AI, the power advantage of corporations will only grow ‘exponentially’ (Azhar, 2021). It could be this that tips the balance away from the state, and towards the corporation.
Moreover, this accumulation of digital and data power is largely a zero-sum and irreversible process, like the exploitation or ‘extraction’ of raw materials from physical landscapes (Aho and Duffield, 2020). States will likely struggle to reclaim the data of their citizens once it is ‘mined’ and ‘processed’ (Aho and Duffield, 2020), losing ‘data sovereignty’ (Taylor, 2020; Calzati, 2022). It is for this reason that India defined ‘data’ as a ‘”national asset”’, which ‘”the government holds in trust”’, and prohibited use of TikTok in 2020 (Azhar, 2021, p.186).
Moreover, it is for this reason that the terms ‘data trafficking’ (Kokas, 2022), ‘data colonialism’, and ‘data imperialism’ have emerged, operating through ‘software, hardware, and network’ (Kwet, 2019; Calzati, 2022). A primary example of this is Facebook’s Free Basics Service, a ‘free internet service to people with little or no disposable income’ (Kwet, 2019). However, this extracts data from users and directs users through the Facebook infrastructure (Kwet, 2019, p.12). Similar points have been made regarding China’s ‘Digital Silk Road’ (Taylor, 2020).
(f) Interaction between the state and corporations
Finally, it should not be omitted that a crucial dimension of power for states and corporations is dependent on their mutual interaction. Neither a state, nor a corporation exists in a vacuum. They each shape the boundaries and power of the other.
One key example of this interaction is regulation. As exemplified by competition law and data legislation, the state will often act to demarcate the limits of corporate power and freedom. The control that China exercises over the Internet, the sovereignty of its data, and its corporations is an inescapable admission of the power that ‘Big Tech’ MNCs can possess when left unchecked. However, it appears that the degree to which states control MNCs is highly variable. Where China is pioneering its ‘social credit system (SCS)’ by harnessing data corporations, prioritising ‘data localisation’ (Liu, 2019; Taylor, 2020) and asserting control through its ‘Cybersecurity Law’ (Calzati, 2022), US regulation is significantly underdeveloped (Aho and Duffield, 2020). Yet, where this may be a choice in the case of the US, many states in the Global South, lack the capacity to regulate the MNCs that provide their digital infrastructure (Calzati, 2022).
Furthermore, the silent influence of MNCs on US politics is no novelty, as proven by the accusations made against Cambridge Analytica regarding electoral manipulation in 2016, and the notoriety of PACs and Super-PACs as the vehicles of mass lobbying in the US (Facebook ‘spent nearly $20m in 2020’ and Amazon ‘$18m in 2019’) (Ryan, Day, and DeBarros, 2021). Corporate interests always lurk in the shadows of major democracies, none more so than the US.
Summary
Thus, it seems as if the balance of power has shifted considerably between states and corporations, and the territory upon which such power is distributed is ever-changing. It is still far too premature to discuss an existential struggle between the state and the corporation, but it certainly seems as if some corporations are more powerful than some states. This is certainly the threat posed by Facebook Basics in Africa and China’s Digital Silk Road across the Global South.
(3) The USA v China; the USA v free speech; the USA v TikTok?
In April 2024, the US Congress passed the ‘Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act’, stating that TikTok would be banned if it was not sold to an American buyer by the 19th of January 2025. Its stated justification was ‘national security’, owing to the fact that TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance and its ‘Data Security Law’, allowing the Chinese state to draw upon data held by such corporations for intelligence purposes (Kokas, 2022). If implemented permanently, the ban would deprive TikTok of updates on US devices, would cut off its availability through Google and Apple operated app stores, block its usage through the Internet, and thus render it dysfunctional (Looker, 2025).
As expected, this episode has not been without considerable resistance. The pending ban has faced legal action in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the US Supreme Court. TikTok has repeatedly claimed that it is not subservient to the Chinese state and made arguments pertaining to the First Amendment of the US Constitution (Kerr, 2025). However, its legal attempts to prevent the ban from taking place have been wholly unsuccessful.
Notably, this sequence of events is still in a state of flux. In the week preceding his inauguration, Trump continually expressed an intention to use an executive order to delay the ban with a ’90-day extension’, in stark contrast with his approach to TikTok during his first presidential term (Looker, 2025). Following that inauguration, an executive order has been approved ‘granting TikTok a 75-day extension’ to organise the ‘sale’ demanded by the 2024 legislation (Jamali and Hoskins, 2025). Furthermore, if TikTok makes ‘structural changes’ to its operation to ease national security anxieties, the approval of Trump could remove the need for any sale (Maheshwari and Hopluch, 2025). Uncertainty also remains as to whether TikTok will be sold, and to whom it would be sold to in that eventuality.
However, regardless of future events, this struggle between the US state and TikTok adds several crucial insights to questions over whether corporate power can begin to challenge state power.
First, TikTok has mass reach, extending to over one billion users globally (Kokak, 2022) and around 170 million in the USA alone (Looker, 2025). In 2022, ‘53 billion user hours’ were spent on TikTok according to some estimates (Foley, 2025). The outcry from TikTok’s users over its pending removal is a sharp statement of the popular power that it can command within this user base. Moreover, such is the embeddedness of this form of social media within US society that there has been a mass shift of TikTok users to its near equivalent in ‘RedNote’ or ‘Xiaohongshu’ (Bailén, 2025; Tan and Wang, 2025). This Chinese app has become the ‘most downloaded free app in the US App Store’ with – at one point – ‘700,000 new users’ joining in ‘two days’ (Tan and Wang, 2025).
Second, even in the form of its US arm alone, TikTok possesses mass wealth and potential value, exceeding the GDP of many nation-states. ByteDance places its own total value at approximately $300 billion (Wang and Shah, 2024), and – despite the ambiguity in method – a consortium led by Frank McCourt has placed the US version of TikTok at $20bn alone, with some valuing its algorithm at $300 billion (Liu and Durot, 2025).
Third, the reaction to the TikTok ban and the arguments presented against it are illustrative of its normative power within the USA, a power that may have been significantly underestimated up to this point. The presence of TikTok is not treated as the abnormality, it is its proposed absence that appears to be a deviation from the norm. Indeed, the popular perception seems to be that it is not TikTok that is interfering with the state, but the state interfering with liberty. In the arguments against the ban, TikTok has come to embody our most valued democratic ideals of liberty, democracy, and freedom of expression (Maheshwari, 2024). The description of ‘TikTok’ as the ‘only true democratic social platform’ in one article (Galer, 2025) is symptomatic of this normative frame.
Moreover, responses to the ban have centred around satire and humour, with users describing their separation from their ‘personal Chinese spy’ (Tan and Wang, 2025). This is a stark example of the normative power MNCs have constructed in making their very exercise of power invisible within plain sight (Papazoglou, 2019). Despite it being the state expressing these concerns, the idea of data exploitation is widely perceived as imaginative, surreal, hyperbolic, and fictitious. Such a narrative will likely grow with Trump highlighting Chinese production of ‘telephones’ and ‘computers’ as a ‘bigger threat’ (BBC News, 2025). The banality of TikTok is its true source of power. While a minor detail, the term ‘TikTok refugee’ (Tan and Wang, 2025) speaks to how the platform has become thoroughly politicised and central to US politics. ‘Refugee’ is not a term that one would normally expect to attach to commercial issues. Even if used as humour, this term is inescapably emotive, political, and attached to the language of freedom.
Finally, the fact that this is an issue at all speaks to the immense power that data represents. While this is a response to China’s considerable power, this episode is a distinct and inescapable admission by the American state that MNCs can and do present a threat. If there is any conclusion to be reached on this issue, that is the most significant.
(4) Conclusion
Ultimately, the question of whether ‘Big Data’ MNCs are more powerful than the most powerful states might still be a slightly absurd one. However, enough has changed with the advent of ‘Big Data’, Generative AI, and LLMs to demand that we start to consider it. The complex struggle between the US, TikTok, and China marks a moment beyond which the question of state-corporation competition should be considered more seriously.
(5) Sources and further reading
(5.1) Elsewhere on The Student Lawyer: the state and corporations
Imran Chaudhri, ‘Lobbying in the UK – A Threat to the Nation or an Unavoidable Constant’, The Student Lawyer,19/06/2024
Lauren Bryant, ‘Debating the nature of decentralisation in the context of the blockchain’, The Student Lawyer, 31/03/2023
Sol Han, ‘Closing the Tab on Google: How Will the DoJ’s Push for the Divestiture of Chrome Affect the Tech Industry?’, The Student Lawyer, 30/11/2024
Yoshinori Maejima, ‘Impact of increased antitrust investigations on the tech industry’, The Student Lawyer, 09/09/2024
Samuel Page, ‘Artificial Intelligence – key global trends and regulatory developments’, The Student Lawyer, 20/03/2024
(5.2) TikTok and the US
‘Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act’, Congress.Gov
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text
BBC News, ‘Trump says TikTok is “going to stay around”, BBC News, 23/01/2025
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn0y51z7wedt?post=asset%3A182db304-4b3c-46c3-8aa5-a34c0688bedf#post
Inma Bonet Bailén, ‘US TikTok refugees flee to the Chinese App Xiaohongshu’, El País, 17/01/2025
Ana Faguy and Lily Jamali, ‘Trump says he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from ban’, BBC News, 19/01/2025
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwypng0rw0lo
John Foley, ‘TikTok ban could create a valuable prize: users’ brain space’, Financial Times, 13/01/2025
https://www.ft.com/content/933f2e57-fd35-4b2a-ab47-c74d96e3e284
Sophia Smith Galer, ‘TikTok is the only true democratic social platform: a US ban would rob us all’, The Guardian, 16/01/2025
Guardian Staff and Agencies, ‘How would a TikTok ban work in the US?’, The Guardian, 15/01/2025
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/10/how-does-tiktok-ban-work
Lily Jamali and Peter Hoskins, ‘Delay to TikTok ban gets Trump sign-off’, BBC News, 21/01/2025
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0j24rj4ryo
Dara Kerr, ‘US Supreme Court issues ruling upholding nationwide ban on TikTok’, The Guardian, 17/01/2025
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/17/supreme-court-tiktok-ban
Aynne Kokas, ‘Why TikTok is a Threat to Democracy’, Journal of Democracy, October 2022
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/why-tiktok-is-a-threat-to-democracy/
Phoebe Liu and Matt Durot, ‘Here’s How Much Billionaires Like Musk Might Pay for TikTok US’, Forbes, 15/01/2025
Rachel Looker, ‘Trump will “put measures in place” to stop TikTok ban, top adviser says’, BBC News, 16/01/2025
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly57kxkmrxo
Madhumita Murgia and Zijing Wu, ‘China discussing using Elon Musk as broker in TikTok deal’, Financial Times, 14/01/2025
https://www.ft.com/content/cee84b1a-6b55-42a8-abf9-19f9a80e04a6
Sapna Maheshwari, ‘TikTok faces US ban after losing bid to overturn new law’, The New York Times, 06/12/2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/business/media/tiktok-ban-court-decision.html
Sapna Maheshwari and Amanda Holpuch, ‘Why TikTok is facing a US ban, and what could happen next’, The New York Times, 10/01/2025
https://www.nytimes.com/article/tiktok-ban.html
Hannah Murphy and Daniel Thomas, ‘TikTok’s rivals can expect revenue and user gains if US bans app’, Financial Times, 16/01/2025
https://www.ft.com/content/82ad95cb-6b7b-454d-abde-e594ae4924bb
Yvette Tan and Fan Wang, ‘Americans and Chinese share jokes on “alternative TikTok” as US ban looms’, BBC News, 17/01/2025
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c983lr756xwo
Aoife Walsh, ‘TikTok goes offline in the US hours before ban due to come in’, BBC News, 19/01/2025
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz6p1g54q85o
Echo Wang and Chandni Shah, ‘TikTok parent ByteDance’s valuation hit $300 billion, sources say’, Reuters, 17/11/2024
(5.3) The US court judgments
TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd. v. Merrick B. Garland (2024) (Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit)
https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-1113-2088317.pdf
TikTok Inc. et al. v. Merrick B. Garland, 604 U.S. (2025) (Supreme Court of the United States)
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf
(5.4) Financial times data: market cap
https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=AAPL:NSQ
https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=MSFT:NSQ
https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=AMZN:NSQ
https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=META:NSQ
https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/profile?s=GOOG:NSQ
https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=NVDA%3ANSQ
(5.5) Power: technology and the state
Brett Aho and Roberta Duffield, ‘Beyond Surveillance Capitalism: Privacy, Regulation, and Big Data in Europe and China’, Economy and Society, 49(2), 187-212 (2020)
Azeem Azhar, Exponential: How Accelerating Technology is Leaving Us Behind and What to Do About It (Random House, 2021)
Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, Power in Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Vera Burgengruen, ‘Why Latin American Leaders are Obsessed with TikTok’, Time Magazine, 13/04/2023
https://time.com/6270952/latin-american-leaders-tiktok/
Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, ‘Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion’, International Security, 44(1), 42-79 (2019)
Lisa Herzog, ‘Corporate knowledge and corporate power: reining in the power of corporations as epistemic agents’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 1-20 (2022)
Philip N. Howard, Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up (Yale University Press, 2015)
Michael Kwet, ‘Digital colonialism: US empire and the new imperialism in the Global South’, Race & Class, 60(4), 3-26 (2019)
Alexis Papazoglou, ‘Facebook is a New Form of Power’, The New Republic, 22/07/2019
https://newrepublic.com/article/154504/facebook-new-form-power
Frank Pasquale, The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information (Harvard University Press, 2015)
Andrew Philips and Jason Sharman, Outsourcing Empire: How Company-States Made the Modern World (Princeton University Press, 2020)
Tracy Ryan, Chad Day, and Anthony DeBarros, ‘Facebook, Amazon Lead in Lobbying’ in Wall Street Journal, 25/01/2021
Richard D. Taylor, ‘”Data Localization”: The Internet in Balance’, Telecommunications Policy, 44, 1-15 (2020)
Karen Young, ‘Regulation by Blockchain: The Emerging Battle for Supremacy between the Code of Law and Code as Law’, The Modern Law Review, 82(2), 207-239 (2019)
Shoshana Zuboff, ‘Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilisation’, Journal of Information Technology, 30, 75-89 (2015)
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power(Profile Books, 2019)
(7.6) China and data sovereignty
Stefano Calzati, ‘”Data Sovereignty” or “Data Colonialism”? Exploring the Chinese Involvement in Africa’s ICTs: A Document Review on Kenya’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 40(2), 270-285 (2022)
Jingyang Huang and Keller S. Tsai, ‘Securing Authoritarian Capitalism in the Digital Age: The Political Economy of Surveillance in China’, The China Journal, 88(1), 2-28 (2022)
Rhys Jenkins, ‘China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Latin America: What has Changed?’, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 1, 13-39 (2021)
Jinhe Liu, ‘China’s Data Localisation’, Chinese Journal of Communication, 13(1), 84-103 (2019)
Margaret Myers, Angel Melguizo, and Yifang Wang, ‘”New Infrastructure”: Emerging Trends in Chinese Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean’, The Dialogue: Leadership for the Americas, January 2024