TikTok Panic Threatens Speech

Will DuffieldTikTok is a social media app that hosts short ‐​form videos and serves them to users via algorithm. Because TikTok is owned by the Chinese tech firm ByteDance, its surging popularity with teenagers and young adults in America has prompted concerns that it could be used for illicit data gathering and influence operations. These concerns, and a broader crisis of confidence in American culture, have launched host of proposals to ban TikTok. A ban would frustrate the many millions of Americans who use TikTok to express themselves, and efforts to crush the app risk giving the government new powers to police speech across the internet.TikTok ’sProject Texas aims to assuage concerns about ByteDance ’s ownership of the platform by creating an American subsidiary called TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc.. The subsidiary will own American user data and manage TikTok’s deployment on Oracle’s cloud, where Oracle can monitor TikTok’s algorithm. Although Project Texas adequately addresses concern s that TikTok’s algorithm could be re‐​tuned to spread propaganda, worries that the CCP might use TikTok to gather information about Americans for nefarious purposes are harder to dispel.A Foreign Crisis?Like many apps, TikTok collects data from user devices, including users ’ locations and stored media. This data is necessary to make TikTok work, but it can also be misused. Unlike most other apps, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is headquartered i...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs