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No wonder American rivals are trying to clip its wings.
難怪美國的競爭對手們都想要斷其羽翼。
Facebook’s TikTok clone, Lasso, has flopped.
Facebook推出的TikTok克隆版Lasso已經失敗了。
YouTube is said to be developing another (called Shorts).
據說YouTube正在開發另一款應用（叫做Shorts）。
But the biggest threat has emerged in the form of America’s government, wary of China’s rise in any sphere.
但最大的威脅來自美國政府，它對中國在任何領域的崛起都非常警惕。
Politicians in Washington fear that data on American users is being handed to Beijing;
華盛頓的政客們擔心美國用戶的數據會被提交給北京;
that Chinese algorithm designers are infecting impressionable Western youngsters with communist propaganda;
擔心中國的算法設計師正在宣傳共產主義，去感染易受影響的西方年輕人;
and that ByteDance content is censored in line with party whims.
還擔心字節跳動的內容是根據黨的意愿進行審查的。
In March two Republican senators introduced a bill that would ban TikTok from all government devices.
今年3月，兩名共和黨參議員提出了一項法案，將禁止所有政府設備使用TikTok。
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is reviewing ByteDance’s acquisition in 2018 of Musical.ly,
美國外國投資委員會(CFIUS)正在審查字節跳動公司在2018年收購Musical.ly的交易，
another app, which had 60m users in America and Europe.
它是另一款應用，在美國和歐洲擁有6000萬用戶。
In statements, TikTok has said that it stores all American “user data in the United States”
TikTok在聲明中表示，它將所有美國用戶數據存儲在美國，
and that its American operations are “not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government”.
其美國業務“不受包括中國政府在內的任何外國政府的影響”。
The firm is trying to mollify critics and has hired prominent security and legal experts in America to help it.
該公司正試圖安撫批評人士，并聘請了美國著名的安全和法律專家來幫助它。
Last month it opened a “transparency centre” in Los Angeles,
上個月，它在洛杉磯開設了一個“透明中心”，
where it promises to share information about its content-moderation, privacy and security controls,
在那里，它承諾分享有關其內容——審核、隱私和安全控制——的信息，
and said it would stop using moderators in China to handle content from users outside the country.
并表示將停止使用中國的調解人來處理來自國外用戶的內容。
That, most lawyers and technologists reckon, may help get CFIUS off its back.
多數律師和技術專家認為，這可能會讓CFIUS無話可說。
Listing ByteDance in Hong Kong, which is under consideration, may also foster trust.
字節跳動正考慮在香港上市，這也可能加強信任。
So would anointing a non-Chinese successor—though, at 37, Mr Zhang may not be ready to retire.
任命一位非中國籍的繼任者也是如此——盡管37歲的張先生可能還沒有準備好退休。
As a last resort, he is said to be willing to contemplate spinning TikTok off.
據說，作為最后的手段，他愿意考慮拆分TikTok。
That would cement the digital divide between China and the West—until another hit ByteDance app tries to bridge it.
這將加深中國和西方之間的數字鴻溝，直到另一款熱門的字節跳動應用程序對此進行彌補。
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