Why a TikTok Ban May Be Unenforceable in Britain and Beyond

The debate regarding the future of TikTok in the West has dominated headlines for months, driven by fears in Washington and Westminster regarding the application's Chinese ownership.

Theo Bertram, the former general manager and vice president of public policy for TikTok in Europe, has issued a warning to policymakers: a ban is practically unenforceable.

Bertram, who previously served as a special adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, offers a unique perspective that bridges the gap between Silicon Valley technicalities and Whitehall maneouvering. Bertram argues that the drive to prohibit the Chinese-owned application is rooted more in 'geopolitics than anything else', forcing a collision between legislative intent and technical reality.

'We asked to be judged not on the fears that people have, but on the facts,' he has previously stated. He emphasises that the draconian measures being proposed often lack the evidentiary 'smoking gun' required to justify such a significant curtailment of digital expression.

The Geopolitics Of Tech Regulation

The crux of Bertram's argument lies in the distinction between genuine security threats and political posturing. While concerns regarding ByteDance's obligations to Beijing under Chinese intelligence laws are not without merit, the 'ban' narrative often conveniently ignores the industry-wide nature of data harvesting.

As noted by cybersecurity experts and seasoned tech observers, the data extraction practices of TikTok are not uniquely malicious when compared to its Silicon Valley counterparts like Meta or Google; they are simply owned by a different geopolitical rival.

Bertram's insights suggest that banning a single platform does not close the data tap; it merely redirects the flow to other unregulated spaces or US-owned giants that have faced their own litany of privacy scandals.

The Technical Nightmare: VPNs And Sideloading

Perhaps the most compelling angle to emerge from this debate, and one that Bertram's comments allude to, is the sheer technical impossibility of enforcing a total ban in an open society. Removing TikTok from the Apple App Store or Google Play does not erase it from millions of existing devices.

Experience elsewhere shows that when governments erect digital barriers, users, especially the digital-native demographic that dominates TikTok, rapidly adopt Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass geographical restrictions. 'Sideloading' (installing applications from third-party sources rather than official stores) would become rampant, particularly on Android devices which allow this with relative ease.

Instead of a regulated platform where the government can demand transparency regarding algorithms and data flows, a ban would push users into a 'grey market'.

A Fragmented Internet Landscape

The implications of a ban extend far beyond the technical headaches of implementation. Bertram warns of a fracturing of the global internet, a concept often termed the 'Splinternet'. If the UK and its allies proceed with a ban, they risk aligning themselves with the very authoritarian regimes they criticise for controlling their citizens' internet access.

Moreover, the European landscape is proving that regulation, rather than prohibition, may be the more prudent path. The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) has already begun to hold platforms to account with the threat of massive fines, up to 6 per cent of global turnover, rather than existential bans.

Bertram's tenure coincided with this shift towards compliance and transparency, evident in initiatives like 'Project Clover', which aims to store European user data in secure centres in Ireland and Norway.

This suggests that the 'European model' of strict regulation is a viable alternative to the 'American model' of forced divestiture or banning. The former general manager's view is clear: you cannot legislate away a cultural phenomenon, especially one that has become the primary news source and entertainment hub for a generation.

Ultimately, Bertram's intervention serves as a reality check for Westminster and Brussels. A ban might offer a satisfying political soundbite, but in the complex, interconnected architecture of the World Wide Web, it is likely to be as effective as trying to hold back the tide with a sieve. The solution, he implies, lies not in building walls, but in writing better rules.