From the era of the Biden administration to today’s Trump leadership, one thing is clear—there is US consensus that TikTok poses a threat to national security. Today, 170 million Americans and 7.5 million US businesses engage on the TikTok app, and alarm bells are blaring among national lawmakers to decisively nip TikTok in the bud. Two years since TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before the US congress, ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), continues to face mounting regulatory and political pressure to hand ownership over to American soil. In response, TikTok is building a new, standalone version of the app for US users, also referred to as M2. M2 is seen as a desperate attempt by ByteDance…