With TikTok’s U.S. sell-off invoice looming, many questions stay as to what precisely the case is in opposition to the app, and what swayed U.S. Senators to vote overwhelmingly in favor of forcing the app to be bought into American possession, or be banned solely from the area.
As a result of whereas there’s been a lot hypothesis about TikTok sharing U.S. person knowledge with its Chinese language father or mother firm, and probably seeding pro-China tales (and censoring anti-China narratives), TikTok itself has denied all claims, and there’s seemingly no proof to show that any such misuse has occurred.
Or is there?
Late final week, in public courtroom filings associated to the TikTok sell-off invoice, the U.S. Justice Division claimed that TikTok has tracked U.S. customers’ views on delicate points, and shared that info with its Chinese language father or mother firm ByteDance, which is required to additionally go on such information with the Chinese language Authorities on request.
As reported by The Wall Road Journal:
“The Justice Division stated it based mostly its conclusions about TikTok monitoring delicate views on the invention of a software program software that lets U.S. staff of TikTok and ByteDance acquire person info based mostly on a person’s content material, together with their views on topics similar to gun management, abortion and faith.”
That program, referred to as “Lark”, permits ByteDance staff to watch person responses to completely different topics, and probably flag accounts based mostly on their views and behaviors.
Varied former TikTok and ByteDance staff have acknowledged the existence of the Lark system inside each firms, which requires person knowledge to be despatched to China to be processed. Amongst different matters, TikTok staff may additionally observe customers who watched homosexual content material.
The Justice Division claims that it has proof to indicate that TikTok has used these insights to focus on customers with propaganda within the app, on the path of the Chinese language Authorities, whereas additionally censoring sure content material as demanded by the CCP.
Which, as famous, has additionally lengthy been speculated. Again in 2019, The Guardian reported on TikTok’s inner moderation tips which confirmed that TikTok workers had been ordered to censor movies that talked about Tiananmen Sq., Tibetan independence, or the Falun Gong. TikTok denied these claims, whereas additionally noting that a few of these tips had been solely ever utilized inside China, and had not been transferred to TikTok itself (which is barely accessible outdoors of China).
However clearly, the priority stays, and TikTok does seemingly have the means and motivation to make use of these insights to affect person opinion, if it so chooses.
And once you additionally think about the affect that the Chinese language Authorities has over the native model of the app, referred to as “Douyin”, together with the continued efforts that Chinese language state-funded teams are endeavor to sway Western person opinions in nearly each different social app, it appears logical to imagine that TikTok would current an ideal vector for a similar.
So, based mostly on these findings, the menace that TikTok poses is much less about monitoring common person knowledge within the app, and studying what you, individually, are considering, and extra about understanding the political sensitivities of sure person teams, to be able to seed potential narratives that may favor the CCP.
So whereas many TikTok supporters have criticized the U.S. Authorities’s transfer to drive the app right into a sell-off, there may be clear logic, based mostly on inner insights, to help the Justice Division’s case.
Is TikTok getting used to affect individuals’s opinions, in alignment with the CCP’s path? It’s virtually inconceivable to know, as a result of the personalization of TikTok’s algorithm implies that every customers’ expertise is completely different. So that you won’t really feel as if you’re being swayed, and that you just couldn’t probably be swayed by such. However it’s possible not as overt as you assume, and it might be that you just’re additionally not a goal for such.
Or, it might be nothing, as TikTok says.
That is what the courtroom will now need to determine, as TikTok challenges the ruling, within the hopes of remaining lively within the U.S.
