The US media and politicians have been hysterics for some time over TikTok, but now we are seeing that entering into Canada.
For years now, creators have been using the social media platform, TikTok, to earn a living. Some have become quite successful at it as well, pulling in thousands, if not, millions. The effort has had positive impacts on the overall economy as that has created numerous spinoff jobs as well (such as additional editors, for instance).
Older generations may not necessarily understand it at all, however, people in younger generations are more likely to be into it. TikTok creators generally aren’t hurting anyone and people who view those videos are generally enjoying themselves. Nothing wrong with that at all, really.
The problem came up in recent years, however, as xenophobia grew in the United States. To be sure, TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance. What’s more, TikTok does collect and use personal information just like any other social media platform out there. Yet, the conspiracy theories seemed to take hold that TikTok is somehow this unique nebulous threat to people in north America.
The conspiracy theory about TikTok, as far as I could gather anyway, is that because ByteDance is a Chinese company, then the Chinese company can demand the company to hand over all personal information over to them. That way, the Chinese can use that information to overthrow elections and cause economic chaos across the world.
The conspiracy theory is extremely silly and is easily deflated by pointing out that, worst case scenario, TikTok doesn’t pose a threat any greater than any other social media platform. After all, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have long been seen as at fault for aiding in the meddling of the US elections that allowed Donald Trump to become president, much to the delight of foreign adversaries. Yet, despite this, no one is even contemplating banning Facebook by any stretch of the imagination.
What’s more, there has been no evidence that says that TikTok collects information that is outside the norms of any other social media platform that we have ever seen. Even on the surface critical thinking would suggest that the idea that TikTok represents a unique threat to the world is absurd. How, exactly, is the Chinese government going to somehow meddle in elections if they happen to know you like cooking video’s? It’s a tad ridiculous if you ask me.
Additionally, let’s say North America bans TikTok in the first place. Does this really solve anything? Not really. There’s nothing stopping the Chinese government from buying up data from shady data brokers which is, arguably, a source that contains more detailed information anyway. You’re not really solving anything here.
Yet, the consequences of prohibiting access to TikTok will invariably be quite severe. Digital first creators will, in a number of cases, find themselves either losing a portion of their audience or unable to access the very source of their income. Some may very well move to another platform and have to adjust to the new environment, but there’s no guarantees that a transition to another platform will go smoothly – or even successfully for that matter. Ultimately, the only sure thing any kind of TikTok ban would have is that it will cause harm to a lot of people.
This all leads to the central question I’ve always had about this whole affair: what problem are you hoping to solve by banning TikTok? The most viable response to this question (and it isn’t really that viable) is that you are hoping to protect people’s privacy in the grand scheme of things.
If privacy is the problem you are hoping to solve, banning TikTok is going to do nothing to solve that problem. If you are concerned about privacy, there is actually a well known solution to this problem: privacy reform. Both Canada and the United States suffers from a lack of broad, federal level privacy regulations. In Canada, we hand out strongly worded letters and tell people or organizations who violate privacy laws to “don’t do that again.” In the US, enforcement of privacy laws is, at best, a patchwork system – sometimes handing cases to regulators who may or may not be suitable or equipped to handle such cases.
With broad privacy laws, you can set the rules to a whole bunch of critical things. This might include what security standards are in play to the storage and use of personal information, rules surrounding importing and exporting personal information to other countries, fines for people or organizations who break these rules, regulations surrounding the use of shady data brokers, and a whole suite of other great ideas for bolstering people’s privacy. Privacy issues have been a long-standing problem that the free market has no hope in solving, so, in this case, it really is up to federal government to solve these issues.
Simply put, banning TikTok to protect people’s privacy will only cause bad actors to, at most, move to different sources so they can carry on with business as usual. Banning TikTok is going to do jack to protect people’s personal information.
Yet, despite a complete lack of evidence that TikTok is a unique threat to American’s, the push to ban the app for what amounts to no real reason outside of satisfying a personal vendetta against TikTok or China carry’s on. Recently, there was a vote in the House of Representatives to move a bill forward banning TikTok. Mike Masnick of Techdirt notes that this is likely unconstitutional:
Over the last few days, we’ve had a few posts about the latest attempt to ban TikTok in the US (and to people who say it’s only a divestiture bill: there is a ban in the language of the bill if ByteDance won’t divest).
Yesterday, unsurprisingly, the House voted overwhelmingly, 352 to 65, to pass that bill. The 15 Republicans and 50 Democrats who voted no make up an odd mix. You have some extreme Trump supporters, who probably are voting no because the boss man said so, and then a random assortment of Democrats, including a bunch from California.
I even find myself in rare agreement with Rep. Thomas Massie, who once blocked me on Twitter. He did so in response to me calling out his First Amendment violations in blocking people on Twitter (he eventually removed the block after the Knight First Amendment Institute sent him a letter on my behalf). Rep. Massie may have a somewhat conditional take on the First Amendment, but he correctly pointed out just how dangerous this bill would be:
The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps. The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the “foreign adversary.”
Massie also pointed (as we did earlier this week) to the clearly lobbied-for (hi, Yelp lobbyists!) “exclusion” for review websites as proof that people know this law covers websites.
I stand by the point we’ve been making for multiple years now: banning TikTok is a stupid, performative, unconstitutional, authoritarian move that doesn’t do even the slightest bit to stop China from (1) getting data on Americans or (2) using propaganda to try to influence people (which are the two issues most frequently used to justify a ban).
Banning TikTok, rather than passing comprehensive federal privacy legislation, is nothing but xenophobic theater. China can (and does) already buy a ton of data on Americans because we refuse to pass any regulation regarding data brokers who make this data available (contrary to popular opinion, Facebook and Google don’t actually sell your data, but data brokers who collect it from lots of other sources do).
Meanwhile, there’s little to no evidence that China is “manipulating” sentiment with TikTok, and there’s even less evidence that it would be effective if they were trying to do so. Public sentiment in the US regarding China is reaching record lows, with the vast majority of Americans reasonably concerned about China’s role in the world. So if China is using TikTok to propagandize to Americans, it’s doing a shitty job of it.
Another point that was raised, which I find to be a very good point, is that if the US starts banning apps it doesn’t like, it puts itself on a weaker footing with other countries who want to ban American made apps. If India decides one day to ban Facebook, for instance, the United States may object to the move, but a retort India could very well make is that the United States banned TikTok out of national security concerns, what makes the United States believe that India can’t do the same thing? The United States would simply not have a valid response because they would find themselves to be hypocrites in all of this.
While a bunch of the moral panic I see over TikTok has largely been left south of the border, I am disappointed to learn that the moral panic over TikTok is seeping across the border into Canada. Take a look, for instance, at this recent CTV report:
OTTAWA – The federal Liberals ordered a national security review of popular video app TikTok in September 2023 but did not disclose it publicly.
“This is still an ongoing case. We can’t comment further because of the confidentiality provisions of the Investment Canada Act,” a spokesperson for Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said.
“Our government has never hesitated to (take) action, when necessary, if a case under review is found to be injurious to Canada’s national security.”
The revelation comes after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday to ban TikTok unless its China-based owner sells its stake in the business.
“We’re watching, of course, the debate going on in the United States,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday when asked whether Canada would pursue a similar move.
In response to the same question, Champagne’s office said that the Liberal cabinet “issued an order for the national security review of TikTok Canada” on Sept. 6.
It said the review was based on the expansion of a business, which it said constituted the establishment of a new Canadian entity. It declined to provide any further details about what expansion it was reviewing.
A government database shows a notification of new business from TikTok in June 2023. It said Network Sense Ventures Ltd. in Toronto and Vancouver would engage in “marketing, advertising, and content/creator development activities in relation to the use of the TikTok app in Canada.”
Ultimately, the good news here is that the government is only conducting a review based on efforts by TikTok to expand in Canada. So, it’s only doing this as required by law as opposed to opening some kind of investigation because American lawmakers are flipping out over an app they know little about.
Still, the media comparisons between what Canada is doing to the ongoing cluster of a situation going on in the US regarding TikTok does raise serious concerns that the same sort of moral panic could be in the process of seeping into Canadian debate. I’ve personally seen discourse in many sources about how TikTok is some sort of Chinese spy machine that’s going to interfere into elections.
I honestly hope this is going to be little more than a flash in the pan before the debate dies down again. After all, Canada has enough to worry about between Conservative and Liberal party efforts to censor the internet under an assortment of false premises in the first place. The last thing this country needs right now is government officials making evidence free claims that Tiktok needs to be banned in Canada because it’s somehow a menace to society.
