One If by Lenovo, Two If by TikTok

A woman walks past the headquarters of ByteDance, the parent company of video sharing app TikTok, in Beijing, China, on Sept. 16, 2020. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Things were a lot simpler when we were fighting the Redcoats nearly two and a half centuries ago. Before he famously rode into history in the midnight hour, alerting Colonial militia of the approach of British troops, Paul Revere arranged for Boston’s North Church to use lanterns in its steeple to signal to colonists which route the British were taking in their invasion—“One if by land, two if by sea.”