“Build a local clone” — the obvious answer is that both Instagram and Snapchat already have; and that nobody wants to switch. If only the US blocked TikTok, that’d just mean there’d still be a TikTok that every other western country has access to except the US, full of content interesting to Westerners. People with Android devices would just sideload it, and use VPNs to access it if necessary.

The less-obvious answer: TikTok is the local clone, in a sense. It’s a separate app from the Chinese Douyin app.

Personally, I’d suggest copying China’s own strategy here: tell ByteDance that if they want to operate in the US, it has to be through a contract with a non-owned US company staffed by US citizens. Essentially making TikTok into an American company that just happens to license some Chinese software IP.