Does TikTok Promote Anti-American Views?
By Movieguide® Contributor
A new study found that users who use the Chinese-language version of TikTok, Douyin, are likely to favor Chinese political views with anti-American sentiments.
“In a public opinion poll released on December 11, 18.2 percent of respondents identified themselves as Chinese-speaking TikTok users, who were active on the app an average of 4.4 days per week,” Newsweek reported.
“Respondents in that group were more likely, by up to 10 percentage points or more, to agree with arguments that cast skepticism on the United States while leaning toward China’s political positions, according to the results published by Taiwan‘s Information Environment Research Center (IORG), a nonprofit specializing in fact-checking and disinformation on Chinese-language social media,” Newsweek explained.
The Chinese-speaking users agreed that Taiwan-U.S. relations are “provoking China” and that a successful financial future for Taiwan means more trade deals with Beijing are needed.
Newsweek previously noted that Douyin’s users, which amount to about 750 million, “frequently loses access to content and searchable phrases that carry even the slightest hint of political satire, granting China’s leaders indisputable immunity from accountability.”
Many countries’ have suspicions about the Chinese-owned TikTok due to privacy and cybersecurity concerns.
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University’s Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience found that there was “a strong possibility that TikTok systematically promotes or demotes content on the basis of whether it is aligned with or opposed to the interests of the Chinese government.”
The researchers found that political content was either augmented or stifled according to the interests of Chinese government agendas. This distortion could lead to changed attitudes and perceptions that are based on false or exaggerated information or a lack thereof.
A TikTok spokesperson said the NCRI’s “report uses a flawed methodology to reach a predetermined, false conclusion.”
The spokesperson said, “It fails to take into account the basic fact that hashtags are created by users, not by TikTok. Most importantly, anyone familiar with how the platform works can see for themselves the content they refer to is widely available and claims of suppression are baseless.”
However, the FBI previously expressed similar concerns about what was found in the NCRI study.
Movieguide® reported earlier this year:
“It’s the control of the data to conduct all sorts of big operations. It’s the control of the recommendation algorithm, which allows them to conduct influence operations. It’s the control of the software, which allows them to then have access to millions of devices,” [FBI Director Christopher Wray] said.
“You put all those three things together, and again, come back to the starting point, which is, this is a tool that is ultimately within the control of the Chinese government and it to me screams out with national security concerns.”
Following a line of questioning from Sen. Marco Rubio, Wray disclosed that China can control the narratives users see and divide Americans against each other by controlling data. This could be done without any “outward signs of it happening.”
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