‘TikTok Is Just the Beginning’
Noah Smith, writing at Noahpinion:
As many observers have noted, this tells us two important things.
First, it tells us that Chinese officials are the ones calling the
shots with regards to TikTok. This should be no surprise, given
that ByteDance is legally required to obey CCP directives.
Second, the refusal to sell the app tells us that the Chinese
government would rather see TikTok destroyed than see it fall into
American hands. Notably, that same government put up little
fuss back in 2020 when the U.S. forced a Chinese company to
sell the gay dating app Grindr to an American company. Why shut
down TikTok and leave untold billions of dollars on the table,
instead of just selling the thing like Grindr was sold?
One possibility is that it’s an attempt to make young Americans
angry, in the hopes that they’ll demand that Trump and Congress
repeal the 2024 law. But a simpler explanation is that Chinese
leaders simply think that TikTok, unlike other apps, is so
important that they would rather destroy it than see it escape
their control.
TikTok is an ingenious propaganda platform. A mass audience — which skews very young — finds it addictively entertaining. But research studies show that the platform squelches topics that aren’t aligned with the CCP. Smith cites two; here’s the abstract of the second one, which was published just last month:
Three studies explored how TikTok, a China-owned social media
platform, may be manipulated to conceal content critical of China
while amplifying narratives that align with Chinese Communist
Party objectives. Study I employed a user journey methodology,
wherein newly created accounts on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube
were used to assess the nature and prevalence of content related
to sensitive Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issues, specifically
Tibet, Tiananmen Square, Uyghur rights, and Xinjiang. The results
revealed that content critical of China was made far less
available than it was on Instagram and YouTube.
Study II, an extension of Study I, investigated whether the
prevalence of content that is pro- and anti-CCP on TikTok,
Instagram, and YouTube aligned with user engagement metrics (likes
and comments), which social media platforms typically use to
amplify content. The results revealed a disproportionately high
ratio of pro-CCP to anti-CCP content on TikTok, despite users
engaging significantly more with anti-CCP content, suggesting
propagandistic manipulation.
Study III involved a survey administered to 1214 Americans that
assessed their time spent on social media platforms and their
perceptions of China. Results indicated that TikTok users,
particularly heavy users, exhibited significantly more positive
attitudes towards China’s human rights record and expressed
greater favorability towards China as a travel destination.
Back to Smith:
In other words, the Chinese government is actively silencing the
views of Americans who try to criticize that government. Somehow
I doubt that the First Amendment’s protection of free speech was
intended to protect the right of foreign governments to
silence American individuals from speaking their mind in popular
public forums. That would be a very strange definition of “freedom
of speech”. Of course, I am no legal scholar, so I’ll have to wait
on the Supreme Court to make that judgement, and abide by what
they decide.
★
Noah Smith, writing at Noahpinion:
As many observers have noted, this tells us two important things.
First, it tells us that Chinese officials are the ones calling the
shots with regards to TikTok. This should be no surprise, given
that ByteDance is legally required to obey CCP directives.
Second, the refusal to sell the app tells us that the Chinese
government would rather see TikTok destroyed than see it fall into
American hands. Notably, that same government put up little
fuss back in 2020 when the U.S. forced a Chinese company to
sell the gay dating app Grindr to an American company. Why shut
down TikTok and leave untold billions of dollars on the table,
instead of just selling the thing like Grindr was sold?
One possibility is that it’s an attempt to make young Americans
angry, in the hopes that they’ll demand that Trump and Congress
repeal the 2024 law. But a simpler explanation is that Chinese
leaders simply think that TikTok, unlike other apps, is so
important that they would rather destroy it than see it escape
their control.
TikTok is an ingenious propaganda platform. A mass audience — which skews very young — finds it addictively entertaining. But research studies show that the platform squelches topics that aren’t aligned with the CCP. Smith cites two; here’s the abstract of the second one, which was published just last month:
Three studies explored how TikTok, a China-owned social media
platform, may be manipulated to conceal content critical of China
while amplifying narratives that align with Chinese Communist
Party objectives. Study I employed a user journey methodology,
wherein newly created accounts on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube
were used to assess the nature and prevalence of content related
to sensitive Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issues, specifically
Tibet, Tiananmen Square, Uyghur rights, and Xinjiang. The results
revealed that content critical of China was made far less
available than it was on Instagram and YouTube.
Study II, an extension of Study I, investigated whether the
prevalence of content that is pro- and anti-CCP on TikTok,
Instagram, and YouTube aligned with user engagement metrics (likes
and comments), which social media platforms typically use to
amplify content. The results revealed a disproportionately high
ratio of pro-CCP to anti-CCP content on TikTok, despite users
engaging significantly more with anti-CCP content, suggesting
propagandistic manipulation.
Study III involved a survey administered to 1214 Americans that
assessed their time spent on social media platforms and their
perceptions of China. Results indicated that TikTok users,
particularly heavy users, exhibited significantly more positive
attitudes towards China’s human rights record and expressed
greater favorability towards China as a travel destination.
Back to Smith:
In other words, the Chinese government is actively silencing the
views of Americans who try to criticize that government. Somehow
I doubt that the First Amendment’s protection of free speech was
intended to protect the right of foreign governments to
silence American individuals from speaking their mind in popular
public forums. That would be a very strange definition of “freedom
of speech”. Of course, I am no legal scholar, so I’ll have to wait
on the Supreme Court to make that judgement, and abide by what
they decide.