Every Screen on the Planet: The War Over Tiktok

by Emily Baker-White

The rise of the most effective attention-algorithm ever invented, and the superpower struggle to control it.

TikTok boasts 1.6 billion active users worldwide and wields unprecedented power over culture, politics, and commerce—making its addictive algorithm the greatest prize in America’s technological cold war with China.

In Every Screen on the Planet, Harvard-trained lawyer and investigative journalist Emily Baker-White charts TikTok’s rise from the Chinese founders’ ambitions to its emergence as the world’s most valuable startup—and a potential surveillance and propaganda tool for strongmen. Based on explosive reporting that caused TikTok to track the author and led to an ongoing criminal investigation, Baker-White’s engrossing narrative takes us inside the struggle as hawks in Congress push the company to the brink while the US government seeks backdoor access to observe and influence TikTok’s data stream. Touching on politics, finance, business, and technology, she explains how the war for TikTok will either create a blueprint for autocrats to warp our information landscape or close the open internet as we know it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Technology, Business, Computers, Social Media, Society

368 pages, Hardcover

Published September 30, 2025

About the author

Emily Baker-White is a San Francisco–based reporter at Forbes, where her TikTok coverage has won awards and shaped narratives. A Harvard Law School graduate and former criminal defender, she previously led the Plain View Project, an investigation into police misconduct on Facebook.

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every Screen on the Planet: The War Over Tiktok

I found this book really compelling.

Emily goes over the start of TikTok, the rise, and how it began.

She then highlights the importance of the algorithm, and how it is not just a business tool, but a geopolitical tool.

I found that the book really well frames tensions over US/China tech and the impending current "purchase" and what it all could entail.

I found that Emily also well explained the issues with TikTok, and how it doesn't offer much in the way of digital privacy. In fact, it is more of a surveillance tool. It also is used as a political weapon, polarizing citizens and creating distrust internally, while showing positive messages about authoritarian dictatorships abroad.

Emily does a great job at describing the issues with TikTok, and describing some opportunities as well. I found I learned a lot, and I would give it a recommendation.

Check it out!

Recommended Reading
If you wish to learn more on TikTok and social media, I would also recommend:
Attention Factory: The Story of TikTok & China’s ByteDance
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

3.8/5

[Annie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book operates on a troubling double standard. It treats the pro-China algorithm on TikTok as a form of manipulative propaganda that threatens the privacy and security of its 5.4 million American users, going as far as promoting government intervention to curtail its presence in American life. But it refuses to even mention the extensively documented "pro-American" algorithm on American-led social media platforms, despite the fact that the existence of any kind of "pro-country" content – no matter Chinese or American – is a form of bias, and should be avoided if the author values neutrality. Such pro-American social media policies can been illustrated by their differing treatment of the state media between Western countries and China, with Chinese state media being forced to bore labels of “state media” on its account pages, but forms of Western government-funded media such as ABC or the BBC, not being required to this feature. The pro-Western slant within the Western social media can be further illustrated by the case of Nathan Rich’s account being censored in 2019 on the basis of vaguely worded community guidelines, which the YouTuber accuses the platform of arbitrarily interpreting.

What is important to remember, is that this double standard, even if dressed in concern, is still a form of manipulation. The only thing is, is that this double standard has managed to so thoroughly infiltrate the Western psyche, that most people don’t consider it to be logically flawed. They instead regurgitate the positions with anti-China bias as a universal law, the same way they believe that the apple fell from Newton’s tree because of gravity. The view that we're the good guys, and the countries that don't share our political systems, are bad. The view that our war in Iraq with 100,000 casualties is a “disaster,” but China’s war on Uyghurs with zero documented deaths is a systemic genocide akin to the Holocaust. And anyone that dares to disagree? They will be subjected to the punishment of character assasination. They’ll accuse you of being brainwashed. They’ll accuse you of being “pro-China,” an accusation which assumes solidifies my argument that there is inherent negativity to China. And if you make this argument while having a Chinese last name like I do, they'll say you’re a "spy."

Absolute disgusting trash. I'd take TikTok over this anti-China racist garbage any day. That basically sums up my opinion of this book.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not gonna lie, one review made me laugh and made the point the book was making. People are very susceptible to propagande

Super interesting book, fair warning though by the end it gets pretty technical at times. Thinking that China wouldn't use a super popular social media app as a soft power weapon are idiots (I'm not sorry because it's true). We all think we're smarter than that, but truth is, we're not. What about American social media apps you may ask? Well it's bad when they do it too, and there is a good reason they try to make the EU (I'm live in the EU) cave because they really hate regulations. Personal data is the new oil, it's good to be aware of it.

[Dr G · Rating 5 out of 5]

very thorough documentation and reasoning.