What's the connection to China?
Is there a belief that China was slower at removing these videos that an American firm would be? Because that's the substantive question.
Is there a belief that China was slower at removing these videos that an American firm would be? Because that's the substantive question.
That is an enormous national security threat.
Only figuratively in the hacker/gamer sense. TikTok is owned by ByteSense.
The "TikTok can be used to spy on americans" is much like "Russians interfered in our elections". Both are true, both are legitimately very concerning, but both are also things that the USA has been doing for decades with minimal domestic outcry.
So implicit in our attempts to reign in other countries behavior is that other countries should be attempting to reign in ours. If these are behaviors we think the world would be better off without, the best place to reign in that behavior is by starting with our own government.
Does China or Russia allow for those kinds of tools for holding government accountable? Not as far as I can tell.
Therein lies a massive difference in kind.
No, in the very literal sense that Bytedance has a board of directors, and on that board is a CCP member who has the real final say on everything the company does. When you are a business in China, you defacto work for the government.
China isn't America with a red flag, it's a fundamentally different system. Too many people think they know China because they understand America.
If Biden wants instagram showing people pictures of ponies, it simply isn't going to happen. If Xi wants tiktok to show people ponies, the next day every kid in america will be looking at ponies.
Would you say the same thing if they employed CIA and NSA people in executive positions, and had ex-generals and ex-spooks on the board?
Every company in China however answers directly to the part, and every board has a party member on it, who holds 100% of the voting power.
There really isn't a comparison to be made.
The board of directors of a company are not generally owners.
> and on that board is a CCP member who has the real final say on everything the company does
Which is why it's figuratively true in the "pwn" sense, but not literally true.
Wording matters, and so does getting the facts right.
There is no business autonomy with a court to settle differences. The party wants it, the party gets it. Full Stop.
>The board of directors of a company are not generally owners.
Like I said, China is not America. On Chinese Boards sits a party member who has absolute control. China doesn't care what function American boards typically serve.
Which still doesn't make it literally true that: "The Chinese government owns tiktok", (unless, in addition to using "own" figuratively you are also using "literal" in the now common sense that actually means "figurative").
I don't know how many times we have to go in this circle until we get through that dense skull. If you think you understand Chinese business because you understand western business - you don't.
The opacity of the algorithm, plus the degree to which the content is auto-curated;
the asymmetrical content optimization in exported and domestic versions;
the time-limits imposed on domestic, but not international youth users;
the government-business-CCP nexus in china, partial government ownership of TT, and the human rights record of the CCP;
the refusal to allow western social media and news into China;
I dunno, not much?
Still, even if they are the best at removing videos, they are also the best at breeding new issues which go viral before they are even recognized as a threat and siloing that content so only people vulnerable are exposed. A second possibility is that they may be creating a forum of disruptive content on purpose to keep people distracted with local issues. Additionally there are foreign agents, trolls acting from patriotic intent or even those who are paid, seeking to encourage problem activity or create anti-government movements.