Page 24 - TalkTalk
P. 24
Time for
TikTok to cut
its ties to China
To stay on Western screens, the video app needs new
owners
It is therefore a real concern that it has links to China,
Tiktok’s videos keep its users up late into the whose government is in deep ideological conflict
evening. Now the app’s links to China are causing with the West and sees the media as a tool of
politicians to lose sleep, too. On March 13th propaganda.
America’s House of Representatives passed a Most countries place some restrictions on foreign
bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese owner, ownership of old media (ask Rupert Murdoch, who
ByteDance, to sell the app to an owner of another became an American citizen before taking over Fox).
nationality, or else face a ban in America. If the A bid by Abu Dhabi’s ruling family for
Senate follows suit, the world’s most downloaded the Telegraph newspaper prompted Britain to
app, by one measure, may start disappearing from announce this week that it will ban foreign
screens. governments from owning British publications. Yet
Some fears about TikTok are overblown. True, it TikTok is fast becoming more influential.
hoovers up users’ data. But there is no evidence that It is time for governments to apply the same logic to
it takes more than it claims (or indeed more than new media as they do to old. If anything, the new
rivals such as Facebook). If Chinese spies want to platforms require greater vigilance. A newspaper’s
find out about Americans, the country’s lax data- editorial line can be seen in black and white; by
protection laws allow them to buy such information contrast, every TikTok user gets a different feed, and
from third parties. Banning Chinese apps that gather the company does not provide adequate tools to
personal data would mean outlawing many more, examine its output in aggregate. Even if studies
cutting off Western consumers from some of the suggest bias—some allege a skew in TikTok’s Gaza
world’s most dynamic digital services.
coverage, for instance—it is impossible to know
TikTok has also injected welcome competition into whether TikTok’s algorithm is responding to users’
the social-media market. Six of last year’s ten most- preferences, or to manipulation from Beijing.
downloaded apps came from Meta, Facebook’s
owner. TikTok, which beat them to the top spot, has TikTok admits it once blocked videos on subjects like
brought in a wave of innovation. Consumers Tiananmen Square, but insists it has changed. It has
everywhere are the winners. made expensive efforts to separate American users’
data from others’ and opened its code for inspection.
Yet there is one reason why America’s crackdown is But it has undermined itself, too. It argues that
justified. TikTok has evolved into a broad media selling its American operations would be impractical,
platform with 170m users in America alone. A third since they are so closely linked to the rest of the
of American adults under 30 consider TikTok a business—thus casting doubt on its claims of strict
source not just of entertainment but of news. separation from Beijing.
