I don’t use TikTok except to view other people’s postings. I don’t have the ap on my phone and don’t plan to. However, my choice is not based on fear of China getting my private information. I just have no use for it! But I am “creeped out” whenever I hear of a piece of software that could track my whereabouts, discover enough private information that it could hack into my bank accounts, or that would open the doors to stalking.
Our government believes that the only solution is to put a “ban” into affect.
I don’t trust China or for that matter most foreign countries as to what they can do and what they promise not to do in the software/cyberspace realm. On the other hand, our government also isn’t sinless in this aspect. We all know that if they want to spy on someone they can, laws be damned! And if China wants our information, they currently can already get it through other channels, not just through the TikTok ap.
So what’s a really good reason to ban it? What Ezra Klien puts forth in his Opinion Piece: TikTok May Be More Dangerous Than It Looks
New York Times May 8, 2022 (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/08/opinion/tiktok-twitter-china-bytedance.html) is more convincing to me: that the Chinese could use TikTok to manipulate a false narratives that millions of users would buy into:
“But it [a ban] does not address other ways that China could weaponize the platform, like tweaking TikTok algorithms to increase exposure to divisive content, or adjusting the platform to seed or encourage disinformation campaigns.
Let’s call this the manipulation problem. TikTok’s real power isn’t over our data. It’s over what users watch and create. It’s over the opaque algorithm that governs what gets seen and what doesn’t.”
“TikTok has been thick with videos backing the Russian narrative on the war in Ukraine. Media Matters, for instance, tracked an apparently coordinated campaign driven by 186 Russian TikTok influencers who normally post beauty tips, prank videos and fluff…”
“Imagine a world in which the United States has a contested presidential election, as it did in 2020. If one candidate was friendlier to Chinese interests, might the Chinese Communist Party insist that ByteDance give a nudge to content favoring that candidate? Or if they wanted to weaken America rather than shape the outcome, maybe TikTok begins serving up more and more videos with election conspiracies, sowing chaos at a moment when the country is near fracture.
But that would make it all the more powerful a propaganda outlet, if deployed. And because each TikTok feed is different, we have no real way of knowing what people are seeing. It would be trivially easy to use it to shape or distort public opinion, and to do so quietly, perhaps untraceably.”
He ends with:
“In all of this, I’m suggesting a simple principle, albeit one that will not be simple to apply: Our collective attention is important. Whoever (or whatever) controls our attention controls, to a large degree, our future. The social media platforms that hold and shape our attention need to be governed in the public interest.”
On the other hand…
Fareed Zakaria’s Opinion piece, Why banning TikTok won’t do any good,
Washington Post April 7, 2023 at 7:45 a.m. EDT nicely summarized all the arguments against a ban:
“And when I look at the legislation being proposed that would enable the U.S. government to ban TikTok, I see a frightening, Orwellian law that should send chills down every American’s spine.”
“If we ban TikTok, will we also ban Chinese media companies from distributing pamphlets or books in the United States? Will we ban all Chinese video game companies, which are giants in the industry? The premise of an open society is that people should be free to consume what information they want — and that we are stronger for it.”
“A bipartisan group of senators has put forward legislation… This law would give virtually unlimited powers to the U.S. administration to prevent or punish any company that has tech or information products or services that — in the administration’s view — pose an ‘undue or unacceptable risk to U.S. national security or the safety of U.S. persons.’
We are living in times when state governments are banning books by the hundreds, when speech is considered a weapon and when politicians openly talk about shutting down dangerous ideas.”
“But the key to the United States’ success and dynamism, decade after decade, has been its openness, innovation and belief in the vigorous contest of ideas, products and services. …We should not lose that confidence in a panic over one Chinese app.”
“There is a much better way to solve this problem — a comprehensive data privacy law that would protect all Americans’ data and give people the right to stop companies from using, misusing and selling it. Unfortunately, taking on Big Tech is a much more difficult battle than bashing China.”
There you have it, point and counterpoint. Now it’s for the government and the legal people to hash out what is best for our nation. Sadly, the users of TikTok, us common citizens, will have no input in this processes or the final decision. But you can bet that if there is a ban, the lawsuits will be flying!
But maybe really why our government wants to ban TikTok is because it’s the “eye in the sky”. Millions of people have this ap on their smartphones, millions of people take photographs that show government failures or things like police beatings. Millions…you ban this and it becomes impossible for your or me to share what is going on. It’s the “share part” that probably scares the bejeezus out of our politicians, not what China could do!
Word Power 