31 March 2023

The New York Times: “How to Fix the TikTok Problem”

The even deeper problem is that putting TikTok under state control, banning it or selling it to a U.S. company wouldn’t solve the threats that the app is said to pose. If China wants to obtain data about U.S. residents, it can still buy it from one of the many unregulated data brokers that sell granular information about all of us. If China wants to influence the American population with disinformation, it can spread lies across the Big Tech platforms just as easily as other nations can.

Not to mention that our national lack of focus on cybersecurity defenses means that it would be much more effective for China to just hack every home’s Wi-Fi router — most of which are manufactured in China and are notoriously insecure — and obtain far more sensitive data than it can get from knowing which videos we swipe on TikTok.


A better solution would be to pass laws that force all of our tech to serve us better. Rather than engage in what Evan Greer of the advocacy group Fight for the Future calls “xenophobic showboating”, let’s get serious about demanding true security, privacy and accountability from all of the tech in our lives.

Julia Angwin

The debate around a TikTok ban has been heating up again, and the dispute somehow sounds more disingenuous and misleading than before. TikTok certainly had its fair share of failures in privacy and data handling practices, but the hearings in the US Congress seem focused on grandstanding and fearmongering against China, not on highlighting concrete issues and putting forward impartial solutions.

Almost everything TikTok is accused of (spreading misinformation and propaganda, rampant collection and mishandling of sensitive personal data, fueling addition and negative emotions among teens) applies just as well to other large scale social networks, from Twitter to YouTube, to Facebook and all their properties. The sole differentiator is that this particular company is owned by China, so the message comes across hypocritical, as if those negatives are acceptable so long as the perpetrator is under US control. And you can be sure that US tech giants are furiously lobbying Congress to put more pressure on TikTok, in order to maintain their dominant positions in ad markets against this unexpected competitor, which again highlights the corrupt nature of the legislative process in the US.

TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Chew, in front of reporters
TikTok users have shared video montages of the app’s chief executive, Shou Chew, to the tune of pop songs and applied the “fancam” treatment typically reserved for celebrities. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Not that the side opposing the ban has any better reasoning. The 1st Amendment angle looks especially dubious to me. Granted, I’m no expert in the US byzantine legal system, but it sound preposterous to argue that people’s free speech is being hurt by removing an app, however popular. Was their free speech somehow impeded before the app launched in the US? Did they not have dance moves and idiotic challenges before TikTok? Do US citizens who aren’t using TikTok have less free speech than those who do? Evidently people will readily find alternatives in the absence of TikTok, even the tired old option of just expressing yourself in front of close friends rather than online.

Despite the current fervor, I doubt the US Congress or the Biden administration will proceed with a full ban. The legal challenges that overturned Trump’s executive order remain, and I think neither political party is eager to antagonize a large portion of the young demographic ahead of elections next year. The Republicans may be more interested in fact in making lots of noise on the topic, then throwing this hot potato in Biden’s lap: if he refuses to ban the app or take a tough stance, they can score political points by accusing him of being weak on China; if he upholds the ban instead, they can capture the youth anger by blaming Biden for pulling the trigger, and for any geopolitical retaliation from the Chinese government. If Congress were to directly pass a law, the blame would be more evenly spread out to both parties.

If the US does goes through with this irregular ban, it may also signal to other countries that the era of globalized tech and platforms is nearing its end. Because who would allow its citizens to be surveilled by a foreign power without any checks or controls, or allow that power to spread public narratives through these companies? The US government may well stress that it’s not involved with tech giants the way that China controls and directs the actions of Chinese companies both internally and abroad. But a biased ban of TikTok in the name of national security, which clearly protects the interests of US corporations in the process, would severely undermine this argument and incentivize other countries to rethink the access to their markets and public spaces, possibly on similarly nebulous ‘national security’ grounds.

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