Newswise — After years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular social media app TikTok, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a deal reached with Chinese negotiators that could allow TikTok to continue operating in America. Virginia Tech communications and social media experts Megan Duncan, James Ivory and Cayce Myers shared insights on the multitude of issues informing the deal and on what the plan agreed upon with China could mean. Megan Duncan on government involvement in social media regulation“This announcement could be the beginning of the end of a protracted political debate about the role of government in social media platforms. Popular discourse, congressional hearings, judicial cases, and executive orders have all contributed in the past five years to how we get to this summit in Madrid and this cursory announcement of an international deal,” Duncan said. Regardless of how the TikTok deal unfolds, we can expect the White House to continue to be deeply involved in individual companies' business activities,” Ivory said.