Responding to a lawsuit from video-sharing platform TikTok, the US Justice Department argued that China could order the company to manipulate TikTok’s algorithm and expand Beijing’s “malign influence.”
The US Justice Department defended a law that aims to either ban TikTok or force it to divest its assets in the US after the social media company filed a lawsuit against the legislation.
Under the law, the social media platform will have to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the US by January 19, 2025.
The Chinese-based TikTok is challenging the law before a US appeals court.
What is really going on here? Fear of conpetition? How will divestment ensure data is still not shared?
It’s a small amount of protectionism.
I don’t think it’s foreign ownership or hostile intent. The data and influence angle is shaky - any company, including those accountable to hostile foreign governments can buy data. And that data can be put to use running influence campaigns with our without official platform support on pretty much any platform.
But TikTok isn’t beholden to the U.S. They don’t have to adhere to the same sorta of content moderation policies, and they don’t necessarily have to have the same values. If I may be conspiratorial, I think that other social media platforms tweak their algorithms in ways that keep U.S. regulators happy
To me, it’s telling that the U.S. made threats about it until the Gaza war, and that much of the U.S. opposition to it has been engendered through TikTok. It seems once that became apparent, the U.S. set to make good on its threats to shut TikTok down.
I’m not a big TikTok booster, but I sort of think they’re on the receiving end of injustice here - ironically, for being free in the content they show (U.S.) users.
Is it really such a stretch to say a Chinese owned company managing the feeds of the most active social platform would use that platform to sow division and hatred in the US?
Isn’t that already happening by American companies? Data is being sold for pennies to the highest and lowest bidders, which are probably not all domestic interests.
“Whatabout US companies”
US companies have seen similar criticism, antitrust suits, and billions in fines.
It is true that US tech companies have horrendous practices when it comes to data privacy and security, and that the US needs better federal regulation similar to GDPR to protect the consumer. This must be corrected.
It’s also true that the location of the parent company of a social media platform does not protect that platform from bad actors and adversarial abuse. See: Facebook in 2016
However, there is a big difference between selling bits of redacted data to ad companies, and providing raw database access to a foreign adversary with malicious intent.
Add to that the fact that kids/teens use tiktok more than any other platform, and their habits are exposed without their knowledge or consent.
The possibilities are endless, but to name a few concerns:
- The CCP is using this app as a social engineering experiment to attempt to influence public opinion in the next generation of Americans.
- Imagine how much easier it will be to influence the next generation of US politicians who have no privacy whatsoever, and whose thought patterns are well documented.
The EU has already fined them for their negligent privacy practices: https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/15/tech/tiktok-fine-europe-children/index.html
It’s not enough. I don’t think a ban is the right solution, but the problem is clear.
Your reply doesn’t even make sense in response to the comment. Let me spell it out for you.
The CCP uses TikTok to sow division and hatred in the US.
TikTok is not even available in China, they use another much more controlled platform called Douyin where you can’t say shit about anything.
You don’t give an authoritarian government with a freedom index of 9 access to international user data.
A chinese owned company, by chinese law, is the CCP’s bitch. An american owned company, by contrast, at least has the chance to refuse government requests, not that they always do.
