Another internet service looks questionable

Ontario is last to ban TikTok on government devices

When I say TikTok, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

If you’ve been following the news recently, the answer might be “suspicion.”

After all, the Chinese short video hosting service has taken the internet by storm in the last few years, but is now in the news because governments worry it’s a threat to national security.

This week, Ontario’s government became the last one in Canada to ban it on government devices, following other provinces and the federal government. Similar bans exist in European countries and the United States.

The aim is to protect government data, and Ontario recommended residents review their use of platforms to make sure they understand how the app uses information.

In the early days of the internet, when I began sharing my information with various platforms, some now obsolete or irrelevant, the security of my information was a huge concern. I still get mildly stressed every time I buy something over the internet or share information online.

But at some point, we all took a leap of faith that these organizations were upstanding, organized and secure.

Predictably, that faith was misplaced. Data breaches are now common and various scandals continue to plague many information platforms.

Misinformation, meanwhile, is everywhere. As mainstream media has taken it on the chin for decades, consumers of information have flocked to other sources, which have not proven themselves worthy of trust, in my opinion.

Not only is there increasing concern about how TikTok uses information it gets from users, it has been repeatedly criticized for information it gives to users. Those criticisms include the spread of misinformation and lack of transparency. Facebook and Twitter have their own security and misinformation issues, among other challenges.

For me, the social-media landscape increasingly appears to resemble a circus set in a garbage dump atop a minefield. Light entertainment, putrid waste and hazardous material swirling uncontrollably in a fetid quagmire.

The legacy news industry has much to answer for and continues to be plagued by scandals of its own (and I’m not talking just about Fox News, which has had a challenging few weeks in the trust department), but we can no longer continue to pretend that the digital startups are somehow better, safer, more reliable.

They might look cheap and easy to use, but they have a long way to go yet before they can prove themselves worthy of our trust.