TikTok just a usual suspect
Little has been done about rampant surveillance capitalism, so why the laser-sharp focus on TikTok?
Last week’s grilling of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew by the US Congress was deeply ironic. Ostensibly the hearing was to confront the world’s fastest-growing social platform amid fears that the Chinese-owned app would be forced to share data about US citizens with Beijing.
Different constituencies have different reasons to be concerned. US lawmakers claim it’s about the Chinese government being able to spy on US citizens. The big tech firms echo this. But the real reason for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to be worried is that TikTok is eating their lunch. And dinner. And dessert.
Big tech’s sudden concern for its users’ data is more about it being hijacked by someone other than its own big data hoarders.
It’s worth remembering that the CEOs of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple have been dragged before Congress for similar dressing-downs. In those cases, apart from stern statements and buzzy sound bites from legislators, little has been done about rampant surveillance capitalism.
What, then, is the difference between surveillance by a government or a privately owned company? Does it matter if the company is American or Chinese? To US lawmakers, it seemingly does.
The hypocrisy is always missed by Congress. There are distinct and real concerns about data manipulation via TikTok. At the most basic level it can influence whether embarrassing protests against Chinese laws are allowed to go viral, or be shut down. Or it can push pro-Beijing messaging, as researchers have shown.
But surveillance capitalism has been destructive to the US and its own democratic processes. Facebook’s algorithms were manipulated by Cambridge Analytica to influence the 2016 US presidential elections, when Donald Trump was elected. The discredited firm similarly swung the Brexit vote in the UK towards the leave campaign, which broke British campaign financing laws.
The January 6 “insurrection” at the US Capitol was organised on WhatsApp and Facebook groups, not on TikTok.
The point is: TikTok may have potential problems. US social media platforms have already done damage to the US legal system and polarised the world by allowing hate speech, misogyny, QAnon conspiracy nonsense and damaging misinformation to run rampant. There are years of corroborated evidence and proof. Where is Congress’s righteous anger?
Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican chair of the House energy & commerce committee which organised the hearing, said: “We do not trust TikTok will ever embrace American values. TikTok has repeatedly chosen the path for more control, more surveillance and more manipulation. Your platform should be banned.”
Substitute the word “TikTok” in that sentence for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube and it still makes sense. All of these firms are just as guilty of “more control, more surveillance and more manipulation”.
And those US tech giants are doing it for profit, the most “American” of values.
Meanwhile, Chew has a problem in that TikTok did what paranoid lawmakers fear: its parent company, ByteDance, spied on Forbes reporters and its own staff trying to work out who was leaking information to the US publication. TikTok claimed it was a few rogue employees, which makes the defence even worse because it means its systems can be manipulated.
This is not the last we will be hearing about this convoluted debate. Nor will it end soon.