As Long as It Works

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Algorithmic Life

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Who=E2=80=99s afraid of TikTok? Aynne Kokas on the growing divide between U.S. authorities a= nd U.S society over the hit social-media platform.

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Solen Feyissa

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One of the most popular so= cial apps in America is getting hit with increasing government res= trictions. In late December, President Joe Biden signed legislation prohibi= ting the use of the Chinese-owned social-media platform TikTok on devices o= wned by the U.S. federal government, with a few exceptions in the interest = of law enforcement and national security. Across the country, 14 states rec= ently barred the video-sharing app from their state-owned devices, as well,= and some members of the U.S. Congress want to go further=E2=80=94with an o= utright ban nationally.
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The thinking behind these initiati= ves is that TikTok=E2=80=94which casual observers might associate with vira= l clips of people dancing, talking about books, or demonstrating skincare r= outines=E2=80=94could represent a national security threat, given that the = Chinese state influences and extracts data from the Chinese company that ow= ns it.
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But with more than a billion month= ly users worldwide, TikTok is meanwhile only gaining popularity, especially= among younger people. Over the past two years, the share of American adult= s who claimed to regularly get news from TikTok effectively tripled, rising= from 3 percent in 2020 to 10 percent in 2022. About a quarter of people in= the U.S. under the age of 30 do now. And fully two-thirds of teenagers use= or have used it. All of which would suggest a lot of tension between gover= nments and the public. What=E2=80=99s happening with the politics of TikTok= in America?
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Aynne Kokas is th= e C.K. Yen Professor at the Miller Center and an associate professor of med= ia studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle fo= r Digital Sovereignty. There=E2=80=99s a general consensu= s, Kokas says, among U.S. political elites to guard against national-securi= ty threats from TikTok=E2=80=94a general consensus that belongs to a broad,= bipartisan commitment to challenging China=E2=80=94but the Republican and = Democratic parties have taken different approaches to the issue.
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Republicans, who=E2=80=99ve made a= ttacks on Big Tech companies central to their politics in recent years, hav= e been bolder in their public rhetoric against TikTok=E2=80=94while Democra= ts may have to tread more carefully, not least because they get more politi= cal donations from the tech sector than Republicans do. The challenge, as K= okas sees it, is that the fundamental problems with TikTok can=E2=80=99t re= ally be addressed by clamping down on it directly=E2=80=94because they=E2= =80=99re ultimately problems with the =E2=80=9Cdigital ecosystem=E2=80=9D a= s a whole.

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Graham Vyse: Let= =E2=80=99s start with thing itself: There are a lot of social-media platfor= ms, including popular incumbents like Instagram. Why has TikTok surged to s= uch popularity over the past few years?
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Aynne Kokas: It f= irst emerged in China as Douyin, a short-video social app, which is still t= he Chinese version of the platform. Douyin=E2=80=99s parent company, ByteDa= nce, then acquired an American video lip-syncing app for middle-schoolers c= alled Musical.ly, integrated it into Douyin, and launched TikTok in the Uni= ted States.
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So TikTok was originally made for = teenagers. But during the pandemic, with so many people of different ages s= tuck at home and looking for new kinds of entertainment, it started rapidly= moving out of its original demographic and became wildly popular. Now it= =E2=80=99s a key news source for more than 25 percent of people under the a= ge of 30.
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The story of TikTok also has to do= with U.S.-China relations: The American government has forced the sale of = a number of different foreign-owned social apps that engage in different ty= pes of data gathering. For example, Grindr, the LGBTQ social-and-hookup pla= tform, was acquired by a Chinese firm, but then the U.S. Department of Comm= erce and the Committee on Foreign investment in the United States forced th= em to divest from it. TikTok=E2=80=99s relatively wholesome origins have in= some ways protected it from that fate=E2=80=94though now TikTok is under i= nvestigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment too.
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=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09Vyse: Critics= of TikTok raise a number of issues=E2=80=94about its addictiveness, its sp= read of misinformation, its effect on teenagers=E2=80=99 mental health, and= whether it sufficiently protects users=E2=80=99 privacy. What do you make = of these concerns?

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Kokas: I think mo= st of them are really with social media more broadly. We=E2=80=99re living = now in a digital ecosystem where not just TikTok but Facebook and Instagram= =E2=80=94and any number of other platforms your friends and family might us= e=E2=80=94are deeply data-extractive. There=E2=80=99s very little oversight= of the type of user data these platforms gather. And there=E2=80=99s very = little transparency about how their algorithms gather it. TikTok just happe= ns to represent one of the most successful versions of this phenomenon at t= he moment.
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That said, one of the reasons for = its success was TikTok=E2=80=99s acquisition of Musical.ly, which gave it m= assive data-gathering capabilities, allowing it to build an algorithm that = drew on huge pools of user data. So this is where TikTok differs from other= social platforms with respect to privacy and security concerns=E2=80=94and= where we see the relationship between ByteDance and the Chinese government= taking center stage.
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Because TikTok=E2=80=99s parent co= mpany is based in China, the company faces pressures from the Chinese gover= nment to share its data as part of Beijing=E2=80=99s national-security audi= ts. It also faces pressures in something called civil-military fusion=E2=80=94pressures from the Chinese government to allow the use of any c= ommercially developed products for military purposes.
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Beijing meanwhile keeps a very clo= se watch on all social-media platforms and the type of content they distrib= ute. Even as it=E2=80=99s operating in the United States, there=E2=80=99ve = been indications of censorship on TikTok on topics considered sensitive in = China=E2=80=94like the treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, or= the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, or Taiwan. WeChat=E2=80=94another= platform run by a Chinese firm, Tencent=E2=80=94has a similarly documented= history of censoring content in the United States and other countries.
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So when we=E2=80=99re thinking abo= ut the issues of privacy and security, it becomes extremely important to th= ink not just about the general extractive nature of social media=E2=80=94wh= ich is a vital social issue=E2=80=94but also about the specific context of = data extraction as it relates to China and the Chinese government.
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Markus Spiske

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More from Aynne Kokas at The S= ignal:
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=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=E2=80=9CIt=E2=80=99s = definitely an issue the Republicans are speaking out more publicly= on=E2=80=94across America. But you=E2=80=99ll hear almost the exact same l= anguage from Democrats more privately=E2=80=94and even from people working = in the tech sector. So I think the difference comes down mostly to the exte= nt to which the Republican Party has been able to gain politically by takin= g up the issue aggressively in a way the Democratic Party hasn=E2=80=99t.= =E2=80=9D
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=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=E2=80=9COne of the th= ings that really strikes me, teaching a class called =E2=80=9CThe = Data Ethics of TikTok=E2=80=9D at the University of Virginia, is that when = we read the app=E2=80=99s Terms of Service, my students are appalled by the= data it=E2=80=99s gathering on them and how little control they have over = it=E2=80=94but they also feel deeply resigned, because it=E2=80=99s the mai= n way they interact with their peers..=E2=80=9D
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=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=E2=80=9CEven if peopl= e are able to take a step back from their delight in using the pla= tform and consider its implications, TikTok=E2=80=99s deep integration into= their lives=E2=80=94and the U.S. communications infrastructure they=E2=80= =99re connected to=E2=80=94makes it really difficult at this point to enact= legislation that would control it. Which is one of the reasons why I=E2=80= =99d advocate for an approach that addresses the entire communications ecos= ystem rather than just individual platforms.=E2=80=9D

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