There’s been a lot of press around TikTok and a log of it is bad. Whether it’s the Wall Street Journal hinting that China can steal your fingerprints or listen through your phone or Scott Galloway describing how the Chinese government takes small ownership stakes in influential companies, often called golden shares and typically has influence through their boards.

This is obviously not the best set up for the fastest growing, most influential social network at the moment. I don’t think any country wants their citizens eyeballs controlled by another government.

So how do you beat TikTok? I think you do it by leaning into the issues described above, creating an obvious clone and getting the content creators on board.

1. Create the clone. This parts obvious and I think you get top marks if you keep it as close to the original. I don’t own the name, but tok.us is for sale and I think that’s a good fit.

2. An open algorithm. I think this is key to improve social media. You post the algorithm so people can see how you choose what to send people and you keep the focus on sending more of the same to people. You watch vegan cooking vids, send more. Not open source, just transparent.

3. Set the date. You launch a marketing campaign to take the eyeballs away from the government. Bonus marks if you pick independence day .

4. The ownership contest! This is where things get a bit different. You contact a bunch of the top TikTokers and let them know that you’re starting an open, U.S. based short video format social network that will be owned by the top creators. Then you direct them to the contest page where it shows the first 100 content creators to get to a million subscribers will own 5% of the company (through a pooled investment fund). Then the next 1,000 creators own the next 5% and finally the next 10,000 (or whatever) own the next 5%. Bonus points if you pre-sign up people and make them wait to start so everyone is in a rush at the start.

5. Really at this point it’s up to luck. Did you contact enough people and do people move to the hope of a new, freer platform.

I think it could work though. A mix of fear, greed and American pride to drive people to download an app and join the online goldrush.