Fear of a TikTok Planet

Congress is awash in nativism, Sinophobia and tech ignorance, and Democrats may be almost as dumb as Republicans if they go through with a ban on the popular app.

It’s 2023 and many Members of Congress still don’t understand how the Internet works. Nor do they get how much social media platforms are the infrastructure of our lives, our jobs and our communities. But they do know a grandstanding opportunity when they see one, as evidenced by last Thursday’s marathon hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.

Titled “TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms,” the five-hour hearing showed that given the opportunity to verbally abuse an Asian man (Singaporean Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok) as a stand-in for the Chinese Communist Party, Republican and Democratic House members alike have almost no shame or capacity for reflection. As I tweeted while I was watching the hearing, I wasn’t surprised to see so much nativism, Sino-phobia and ignorance about tech on display from House Republicans, but I was disgusted watching Democrats joining in the stupidity and hypocrisy. Especially, when – as I will show in a moment – it’s their constituents who are disproportionately likely to be harmed and angered by a TikTok ban, the main thrust of the hearing.

The tone for the hearing was set by the committee’s chair, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), in her opening remarks, when she declared that “TikTok doesn’t share America’s values” of freedom, human rights and innovation, and claimed that it has “repeatedly chosen the path for more control, more surveillance and more manipulation.” This after she charged it with collecting “nearly every data point imaginable, from people’s location, to what they type and copy, who they talk to, biometric data, and more,” adding, “Even if they’ve never been on TikTok, [its] trackers are embedded in sites across the web.” Dear reader, you know this is also true for Facebook and Google, American companies that exemplify the American values of surveillance capitalism, which Congress has done almost nothing to address.

McMorris Rodgers once seemed to be one of the handful of Republican House members genuinely interested in embracing the democratic potential of social media. Back in 2015 I gave her a warm welcome when she spoke at Personal Democracy Forum. She said then she wanted to be a “positive disruptor on Capitol Hill.” Congress was more like the DMV than Uber, she warned, and it was important to get Members online where they could engage their constituents more directly, even bragging that her fellow Republicans were the first to “Meerkat and Periscope” a press conference. (Kids, Meerkat was supposed to be the killer app of 2016, if you recall. Sorry Dan Pfeiffer!) “There’s a reason totalitarian regimes around the world ban social media,” she also said back then, claiming she would never snuff out the sparks of freedom. Now, she’s leading the charge to ban a platform with 150 million American users, including five million businesses, all because of jacked-up fears of the Chinese Communist Party doing invidious things with the data generated by TikTok users.

Joining her in that rush to judgment were normally measured Democrats like Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), who represents many of the company’s competitors in Silicon Valley, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who is usually a strong advocate for consumers. Eshoo shrugged off Chew’s attempt to point out that many everyday products Americans rely on, including their phones and their cars, have components built in China that could hypothetically also surveil their users. Nor did she take seriously his offer to have TikTok’s source code reviewed by independent third-party experts, something no American firm has suggested. Schakowsky waved a Wall Street Journal article at Chew, claiming “everything is seen in China,” again reinforcing the nativist fear underpinning the whole session.

There are multiple problems at work here. One is that it’s still OK for Members of Congress to be ignorant about data privacy. At one moment in the hearing, Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-CA) thought she had caught Chew in a gotcha moment, demanding to know why he didn’t let his own eight-year-old child use TikTok. “My kids live in Singapore, and in Singapore, we do not have the under-13 experience,” he replied, referring to a stripped-down version of the app for youngsters. “If they lived here in the United States, I would let them use the under-13 experience,” he added. Not said: We let younger kids access the app in the US because it’s legal to do so under laws Congress hasn’t bothered to fix.

A second problem is the inflated fears that Members have about how users can supposedly be manipulated by companies that collect their data. McMorris Rodgers led the charge, declaring that the Chinese Communist Party can “control” what 150 million Americans “ultimately see, hear and believe.” She added, “It's been said it is like allowing the Soviet Union the power to produce Saturday morning cartoons during the Cold War but much more powerful and much more dangerous.” Outside the hearing, the paranoia was even more explicit. Republican Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) held a press conference with hate-monger Chaya Raichik of the LibsofTikTok Twitter account, claiming that TikTok was “brainwashing” young Americans to join a supposed “transgender cult.”

The most careful studies of user manipulation suggest that few people are being turned into extremists by the algorithms that power social media recommendation systems; as a recent behavioral study by Annie Chen and Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth found, consumption of potentially harmful racist content on YouTube, for example, is concentrated among Americans already high in racial resentment. These kinds of findings contradict the most intensely touted myth that companies like Cambridge Analytica somehow brainwashed millions of voters into supporting Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. But it’s hard to get politicians to think clearly about the issue, now that there’s a micro-industry of ex-techies like Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology who have successfully popularized the notion that tech wizardry is stronger than the human brain. I suppose with some Members of Congress this may be literally true. (Harris is currently whipping up a similar fear campaign about artificial intelligence, but that’s a topic for another time).

The third and perhaps biggest problem is anti-Asian racism, which, if this hearing is any measure, has become politically correct if the target is China. This kind of racism has deep roots in American culture, going all the way back to the exploitation of Chinese railroad workers 150 years ago, the incarceration of Asian-Americans in concentration camps during WWII, and recurring waves of Asian-bashing around the more recent wars in Korea and Vietnam as well as the so-called “Wuhan virus.” As the United States struggles to sustain its imbalanced economic system and and its global influence, it’s become common for politicians on both sides of the aisle to declare that China is “an existential threat” to the American way of life. Fear of a TikTok planet, indeed.

While such rhetoric undoubtedly polls well, it’s never good to legitimize racial or ethnic scapegoating. And a counter-narrative centering the potential of international cooperation is possible, as a deep canvass effort by Justice is Global found back in the spring of 2022. People have real and legitimate fears of economic precarity and Chinese authoritarianism, but also don’t want a great power confrontation and are full of empathy both for the Chinese people and Asian immigrants. As the suggested script for canvassers reads, “I think that a lot of politicians have been playing the blame game rather than really working to address the problems in our economy. Blaming China might make us feel better, but it’s not going to rebuild our infrastructure, fund our schools, or make healthcare and housing affordable. Many people in China share similar struggles; they also worry about how the economy affects themselves and their families. How would you feel if the US and China were to work together on economic agreements that benefit working people in both countries?”

Sadly, no member of the House Energy and Commerce committee urged treating TikTok’s CEO with even a modicum of civility, as politicians competed to produce the best viral moment and rudely spoke over Chew’s attempts to answer the questions they posed to him. Their bellicose behavior was a gift to Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping, who himself loves to stoke Chinese nationalist fervor as a way of deflecting attention from domestic problems.

A Breath of Fresh Air

I was happy to see that my own Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) chose to buck the anti-TikTok tide, holding a press conference before the hearing with some of the TikTok influencers the company brought to DC to lobby on its behalf. “The rush to ban TikTok sets a dangerous precedent for our country by undermining our freedom of speech and distracts from the real issue: protecting Americans’ data and privacy,” he declared. “Many who are hyper focused on TikTok seem to look the other way when Facebook enables right-wing and Russian disinformation to undermine our democracy, and they are springing into action now because it suits their Cold War crusade against China.” He added, “But this is not about defending TikTok as a company. We need strong regulation that applies to every platform in order to protect our data and especially our children. And we also have to protect young people’s right to free expression. Let’s use this moment to craft a comprehensive approach to safeguarding and democratizing the social media landscape.”

The day of the hearing, I asked Bowman how he came to this view. I think it’s interesting to know how our representatives think about tech, so I will quote him at length. He said:

“Back when I was a middle school principal, I was concerned about the overuse of technology in general, but then it was starting to creep into schools. And there were technology companies that were now pitching different curricula to school districts, and because it was tech and it was quote, unquote, innovative, school districts bought into this stuff, right? And so when you sign up for an account with a technology curriculum company, you put in different information, so I got concerned there from the perspective of student privacy--what is going on with this information? And then to zoom out a bit, when you think about Facebook, I always had questions around the information that we put on there, who sees it, what happens to it, and what do they do with it. And then I saw the documentary about Cambridge Analytica on Netflix, The Social Dilemma. And I was just like, oh, this is, this is crazy. This is everywhere. What the heck are we gonna do about this? And I didn't see anyone doing anything about it at that time.

And then I came to Congress, and I still didn't see anyone doing anything about it. Let me take another step back. A few years ago, the whole thing related to WikiLeaks happened, the whole thing related to Edward Snowden, and the NSA happened, and just what data can be retrieved from our technology devices without our knowledge or consent, which is scary as hell to me. And again, the United States Congress and elected officials either didn't know what to do about it, didn't understand it, or were unwilling to do anything about it.

And then most recently, fast forward to just this past fall. I read the book How to Stand Up to a Dictator by Maria Ressa. She's from Philippines. She really articulates the harms of social media in general and Facebook, in particular. She shared information with Facebook about the harm the site was doing, and Facebook pretty much ignored her, and kept her at arm's length and allowed harm to be done not just in the 2016 election, but with the Myanmar genocide [and more recently] as it relates to the insurrection that took place on January 6.

Then I kind of went down the rabbit hole and read another book, An Ugly Truth, which gets into the behind-the-scenes behavior and the philosophy of Facebook and how it runs. And again, they knew Russia was interfering in the 2016 election and they looked the other way. They knew about the misinformation and how harmful it has been and they allowed it to persist. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, they’re all part of this.”

Democratic activists who work with the TikTok creator community also have their hair on fire about the possibility of a ban on the app. “I worry that Congress is not fully grasping the potential for economic consequences of banning the platform outright,” Ashwath Narayanan, the founder and CEO of Social Currant, told me. “This may be largely due to the fact that the creator economy is relatively new and skews younger, but it's a concern that I think they need to consider before implementing any sort of ban.” 

Malia Fisher, the CEO of Vocal Media, which also has developed a specialty in working with TikTok influencers, told me she was “fascinated to see how completely one-sided the conversation is from the TikTok constituency” in response to the hearings. She pointed, for example, to V Spehar, a “super-prominent” TikTok journalist whose video condemning the proposed ban has gotten 3.8 million views and nearly 750,000 likes since it was posted four days ago. Spehar makes several points: that Congress wants the ability to ban any platform, severely limiting free speech; that many religious ministries built on TikTok see a ban as equivalent as “shutting down churches”; that Republican Members complained about misinformation rife on the app but they had also objected to the removal of content promoting fake Covid cures like ivermectin; and that if Members are having trouble getting their kids to follow rules about Internet access, the solution isn’t getting the government to better parent them. Oh, and that talk about protecting kids or complaints about a TikTok video with a gun in it are hollow when Congress won’t actually do anything serious about guns in America.

Fisher told me that “most of the TikTok creator community [is] pretty much writing off the national security concerns,” pointing as well to a recent Quinnipiac poll showing that while 49% of Americans overall support a TikTok ban, 63% of those between 18 and 34 oppose one. She believes most of them would be “completely satisfied” if TikTok’s current effort to wall off American user data, which it inadroitly has named “Project Texas,” came to fruition. Most critically, she noted, “They’ve made it clear that they will not be happy with Democrats and Biden for pushing a ban through.” Here’s one example of that sentiment, from Elise Warren, who says a TikTok ban would be equivalent to a “youth voting ban.” That video has more than 1.1 million views.

Olivia Julianna, Gen Z for Change’s director of politics and governmental affairs, told The Up and Up, “I fully believe that if TikTok is banned that Joe Biden will lose the 2024 presidential election. Not because Gen-Z is shallow and would disregard democracy because of an app, but because the reach and lifeline to voters 18-34 would be hemorrhaged. You will not find these voters on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. You will lose contact with them. They aren’t watching cable and they’re not reading the newspaper. An entire voting block will be informationally displaced.”

Some bonus links:

--Grace Segers in the New Republic on why we should “Fear the Wrath of the TikTok Voter”

--“TikTok ban would be ‘a slap in the face’ to young Democratic voters, activists warn,” Alex Seitz-Wald and Sahil Kapur report for NBC News

--Jameel Jaffer on why banning TikTok would violate the First Amendment (gift link)

--More than a dozen digital rights and free speech organizations, including Access Now, the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and PEN America have signed a joint letter to Congress opposing a ban.

--#DontBanTikTok, an advocacy campaign organized by Fight for the Future.

Odds and Ends

--Israel’s nonviolent pro-democracy movement capped its twelfth week of sustained mass participation with a weekend of rallies gathering some 700,000 people (or nearly 10% of the country’s population, well above the Chenoweth 3.5% threshold) followed by a nationwide general strike called by the largest labor federation and backed by many major business groups. That show of democratic dissent finally caused Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to declare a month-long “pause” in his government’s power grab, but it’s anyone’s guess how this story will end. I’ve been looking for reporting on the nuts and bolts of organizing this movement but have so far found few details. This interview of Shikma Bressler, a 42-year-old physicist who has emerged as one of the movement’s leading faces, offers some helpful information, but it’s also indicative that the journalist talking to her, Amanda Borschel-Dan of the Times of Israel, herself expresses surprise to learn that the movement has a headquarters that has raised at least 20 million shekels (about $5.6 million) and that more than one hundred groups are being supported through that clearinghouse. Other intriguing details from Bressler: this massive movement didn’t arise out of nowhere, but had a kind of dress rehearsal three years ago, when Netanyahu closed the courts and Parliament at the beginning of the COVID crisis. That protest movement mushroomed quickly but died down when an opposition coalition came into power. “We kept the WhatsApp groups alive but not active,” Bressler said, which shows the new movement had somewhat of a pre-existing communications infrastructure.

--Oh, and if you think Netanyahu’s governing coalition is just trying to amend how the country selects its Supreme Court justices and to limit their power over the Parliament, consider this list of other less well-publicized laws that it has rammed through or is on the verge of passing: “The gifts law [allowing unchecked gifts to public servants], the French law [immunizing the prime minister from prosecution], the law against recordings [prohibiting journalists from publicizing recordings of politicians without consent], the Deri law [to allow convicted politicians to serve as ministers], the Police Investigations Department law [weakening oversight of police in cases of police violence], the law to seize control of the Central Elections Committee, the Western Wall law [that stipulates prison time for women dressed immodestly at the holy site], the hametz law [allowing hospitals to bar food that isn’t kosher for Passover], and more.”

--The Dobbs decision overturning abortion rights is starting to reshape the decisions of students entering college this fall, Scott Jaschik of Inside HigherEd reports. States like Texas and Florida in particular are likely to see a drop in young women attending schools in their anti-abortion states, which may affect the investment environment for businesses over time.

End Times

The future of communication in the age of AI.