Where I struggle with the narrative that I see often on here is regarding free speech, the idea that this is 1984/Animal Farm or some kind of antidemocratic action. The CCP has tight control over every company in mainland China. Until you can prove to me that the US government is controlling Meta, any of the whataboutism is just pointless. China is a fairly nefarious actor on the world stage, they grip media with an iron fist and within the country there is no room for swaying opinions, country and party first. ByteDance US had years to figure out an IPO or another way to divest controlling ownership from its mainland counterpart. They did nothing and only argued on free speech. The decision was not one of rational economic thinking, which makes you wonder what they want to achieve.

China does play a real threat to American and other western interests and has done so for many years. If you have evidence that ByteDance is not controlled by the CCP or that the CCP has not very openly played many games both economically, politically and socially I would be happy to see that evidence.