No, the US Shouldn ’t Ban TikTok

Paul MatzkoEfforts in Washington to “ban” TikTok are gaining steam. The scuttlebutt is that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) housed at the Treasury Department, which has been investigating TikTok for over three years now, will soon recommend a forced sale to a non-Chinese buyer. The Biden administra tion has also given its blessing to the Restrict Act, a congressionalbill that would empower the Secretary of Commerce to ban foreign ownership of companies like TikTok.There are legitimate concerns about the access the Chinese government has to TikTok ’s algorithm and user data. In theory, the Chinese government could require TikTok to hand over data about any of its US users. And if it were to pressure TikTok’s content moderation team to algorithmically downgrade videos that didn’t toe the (literal) party line, we would have no way of know ing other than leaked documents and whistleblowers. As I’vewritten before, shadowbanning and other secretive content moderation practices are a major concern given how important algorithmic discovery is to the future of culture and politics.However, this ban is a hamfisted mistake that could destroy the very real value that TikTok has for its users, and do so in service of bad-faith actors who could not care less about the potential downsides.The faction that has been banging the drum for a TikTok ban the loudest and longest are the Sinophobes who will support any action that would strike a blow at C...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs