TikTok is an information and monitoring platform of the Chinese government
Let me make this very clear: TikTok is a Chinese Communist Party platform for intelligence gathering, mass surveillance and information operations. The problem is not just privacy – although egregious, this is comparatively one of the smallest problems with TikTok.
The real problem is controlling the information – the topics, narratives and messages that reach target audiences: What kind of content is promoted, what content goes viral (and what doesn’t), what content is suppressed or removed.
Here, TikTok will pretend to be “just another social app”, especially by comparing it to US platforms and their problems. There is no equivalence – none – to anything a US platform or the US government does. Besides, the problems that US platforms have are “our own” problems to deal with. However, Chinese propagandists know that this is an effective narrative. Therefore, in any debate about TikTok, you will always hear the arguments “the US is no different” and “the US does it too”.
The Chinese government knows how powerful TikTok is when it comes to shaping the mindset of an entire generation of Americans (and Westerners) on numerous domestic and international issues while suppressing content that does not serve China’s long-term strategic and geopolitical interests.
TikTok cloaks itself in the language of free speech and constitutional protections, but TikTok doesn’t really care about these things – quite the opposite. They are merely effective emotional arguments to maintain their cognitive beachhead.
TikTok serves all pillars of China’s “Three Theaters of War”.
Media and opinion warfare, psychological warfare and legal warfare – we see the latter in TikTok’s aggressive lobbying in the US and now in TikTok’s hollow appeals to Americans to call their members of Congress to “protect freedom of speech”.
And all this while China brutally suppresses dissent and anything resembling freedom of expression, not only within China but also outside its borders, and prohibits the discussion of “sensitive” topics such as Xinjiang (where a genocide is actually taking place), Tiananmen, Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong… is forbidden.
Do you know what else is banned in China? TikTok.
Dave Schroeder, US strategy consultant and cyber warfare expert
