We need to talk about micro-treason

TikTok and the need for new vocabulary about compromise

I published this on my personal Substack and thought it would be of interest to Boyd Institute subscribers too. So… cross-posting! Do you agree we need greater consciousness about China compromise? What do you think of the term micro-treason? Add to comments, and thanks for reading. - Jeff

Just over a year ago, I deleted the TikTok app from my iPhone. By then I had discovered CeraVe to wash my face, learned to make overnight oats, and organized my pantry with acrylic bins, all thanks to videos I had watched on the platform. The videos in my feed were mostly about organizing, exercising, and high-protein meal prep, along with parenting tips from this amazing parenting coach in California, Sean Donohue. 

Harmless, right? Not if you listen to policymakers, who say the Chinese-owned platform is a threat to national security. These alarm bells eventually led me to delete the app.

Personally, I’m mixed on whether the U.S. government should ban TikTok. Free speech is good; Chinese compromise is bad. TikTok has become, in a way, a distraction from the much deeper level of society-wide compromise by China. Just last month, the FBI warned China is preparing attacks on our critical infrastructure following a hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon.

Regardless of what happens with TikTok, we as a society must build greater consciousness about Chinese compromise. Indeed, the drama around TikTok raises an interesting question: If treason means helping an adversary defeat your government, then can a simple act like using TikTok be seen as a form of treason? 

Several months ago, I ran polls on Twitter asking people about these issues. In one poll I asked whether using TikTok is a form of treason. The majority said yes. In another poll, I asked if raising funds from a U.S. venture capital fund backed with Chinese money is a form of treason. The results of this one surprised me: 40 percent of respondents said yes. These polls were not scientific, but they did validate the need to have a conversation about these issues.

Some may view characterizing using TikTok as treason as alarmist and extreme. But according to Pew, six-in-ten (59%) Americans already view TikTok as a national security threat. If you share this view, then how can you not view using TikTok as at least some form of national betrayal?

This is where we run into limitations of language. Accusing a TikTok user of treason with a capital T is obviously taking it too far. But isn’t it treason in a softer sense? There’s no word for these little bitty acts of treason. It is either capital-T treason (punishable by death!) or nothing, a binary that gives us no way to talk about little acts of betrayal.

To resolve this, I propose using the term micro-treason.

As I define it, a micro-treason is a small act that creates a national security vulnerability when done collectively. A single American using TikTok doesn’t create much of a national security vulnerability, but 150 million Americans using it does.

Some might wonder how to determine if something is a micro-treason and, relatedly, if it is dangerous to push the logic of micro-treason too far. I would propose that a micro-treason is a spectrum of behaviors rather than a black-or-white issue. It is somewhat subjective too. Two people may disagree on what constitutes a micro-treason.

These issues are important to keep in mind, but they don’t render the concept useless. To the contrary, micro-treason gives us language to talk about these issues in a more refined and sophisticated way. In some cases, there may be consensus on what constitutes a micro-treason. In other cases, as with TikTok use, it may be murkier — and thus a valuable topic for public discourse.

It’s also worth noting that a micro-treason can be an inaction as much as an action. I would argue, for example, that politicians who turn a blind eye to corrupt and treasonous behaviors among colleagues just because they are in the same party is a form of micro-treason. We see this today with known crooks such as Senator Menendez and Congressman Cuellar. Is this passive tolerance not a form of betrayal? Micro-treason gives us language to label it.

To be clear: I am not arguing for Red Guard-like absolutism when it comes to these issues. I don’t want someone calling me a traitor for using an iPhone or buying the wrong microwave. We all have to pick battles based on what truly constitutes a threat. My first step was deleting TikTok, and this was months after its security issues were known.

But we do need a new, stronger awareness of actions that compromise our national security, especially with China. As a society, we should pursue progress not perfection, conscientiousness not dogmatism.

My late grandmother lost a brother flying the Hump in WWII. She refused to buy a Japanese or German car for 50 years. I remember when she finally broke her boycott and bought a beige Honda Accord in the mid-1990s. She thought deeply about it. Her generation had a patriotic consciousness around those types of decisions.

I am asking us, as a society, to introduce language that helps us work through issues like TikTok and protect the country against vulnerabilities, especially the ones that seem small at the individual scale but are significant collectively.

Micro-treason is a start.