When Scott Comey, a real estate broker in Myrtle Beach, S.C., got cellphone video from his backyard of the moment an F-22 fighter jet missile blasted the Chinese spy balloon, he raced to post it to his social media platform of choice: the Chinese-owned video app TikTok.
The world's most popular app, used by roughly 100 million in the United States, has been constantly criticized in Washington as a platform that the Chinese government could use to shape and censor what Americans see.