In the article “Who’s afraid of TikTok? The world’s most exciting app is also its most mistrusted,” published on July 7, The Economist warned that the Chinese ownership of TikTok — a popular short-form video-sharing social media platform that has swept the world and is taking over the market shares of other social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram — is a serious concern.
Headquartered in China, whose government is addicted to surveillance and propaganda, the bigger problem with TikTok is the opportunity it provides the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to access users’ private information and manipulate what the app’s vast foreign audience sees.
India banned TikTok for allegedly stealing Indian users’ information and surreptitiously sending it to China.
With many countries on alert, is Taiwan, which is on the front line of China’s hegemonic expansion, prepared for technology like TikTok?
The Economist article said that TikTok is quickly catching up to its peers, and is growing much faster than other platforms. Last year, it reached the milestone of 1 billion users, which it achieved in four years, compared with the eight years it took Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to reach that level.
The short-video format has caught the attention of young people, with about 44 percent of TikTok users in the US younger than 25, while only 16 percent of Facebook users are younger than 25.
That TikTok was founded in China and under the jurisdiction of the CCP also poses risks. With more and more people watching videos and posting personal information on the platform, the CCP has the power to decide what content can appear and what should not appear, in addition to the possibility of obtaining user data.
China’s “united front” tactics against Taiwan are pervasive. In addition to Beijing’s intimidation and saber rattling against Taipei, its influence on the Internet should also be taken seriously.
For example, Taiwanese Facebook posts are censored by the Chinese, and terms such as “Wuhan pneumonia” (武漢肺炎) or criticisms of China might be banned. This directly interferes with the freedom of speech of Taiwanese.
Furthermore, as the app’s algorithm decides which videos are pushed to users, the operators of TikTok, with its technology in the hands of Chinese companies, control the content that people can see.
Under these circumstances, passing the National Communications Commission’s digital intermediary services act has become even more important. In addition to taking back the right to review content on social media platforms, the act regulates the openness and transparency of online platforms. Protecting Taiwan’s freedom of speech from foreign interference is one of the main aims of the bill.
Pan Kuan was a participant in the Sunflower movement.
Translated by Lin Lee-Kai
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this