An investigative journalist explores the addictive algorithm that lies at the center of a geopolitical battle, as TikTok’s rise sparks concerns over surveillance, propaganda and the future of a free internet amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and China.
The story of the most effective attention algorithm ever invented, and the superpower struggle to control it.
Every Screen on the PlanetEmily Baker-White’s engrossing narrative charts TikTok’s rise from obscurity into the world’s most valuable startup, led by its ambitious founder, Zhang Yiming—arguably the father of the modern recommendation algorithm. Zhang’s products reshaped the global internet from a place where you searched for information to one where information came to you. TikTok seemed to know its users in an almost spooky way, provoking wonder and delight. People were hooked. “We intend to become ubiquitous,” a new-hire training video said, to put TikTok “on every screen on the planet."But virtually everything about TikTok’s users—their interests, locations, and even their unspoken desires—was accessible to staff in Beijing. After Baker-White, a Harvard-trained lawyer and investigative reporter, revealed that Chinese engineers could access Americans’ private information, a team of employees used the app to track her location and attempt to expose whistleblowers. This incident triggered an ongoing criminal investigation and escalated the US government’s fight against Chinese tech.TikTok was the first Chinese app to become a US juggernaut, and lawmakers soon recognized its potential for surveillance and propaganda—and the threat it might pose in the hands of their rivals. Yet even as hawks in Congress gained support to ban the app, the White House was secretly negotiating for unprecedented control over its information stream. In 2025, when President Donald Trump declined to enforce the so-called ban law, TikTok seemed to complete a miraculous corporate escape. It retained its influence, profits, and power, but now operated at the pleasure of two strongmen: China’s Xi Jinping and Trump himself.
