The Politics and Optics of the TikTok Ban
Data privacy and security concerns are not TikTok specific
By Dr. Milovan Savic (Internet Researcher, Swinburne University of
Technology) and Dr. Crystal Abidin (Senior Research Fellow & DECRA Fellow,
Curtin University)
Controversy around TikTok culminated in early August when U.S. president Donald Trump abruptly announced and signed an executive order ordering ByteDance to divest from its U.S. operations and destroy all data collected on TikTok users in the U.S. TikTok was swiftly touted by Trump to be a ‘national security threat’. In a maneuver to avoid the ban, TikTok is considering Oracle as a “trusted technology partner” to oversee its U.S. operations. (The deadline for this deal is November 12. Otherwise, it will become illegal “host or transfer internet traffic associated with TikTok.”)
The issue of data security is not platform-specific and should be tackled more comprehensively across the social media market.
Concerns stemmed from the security of personal data that TikTok collects, exacerbated by the fact that a Chinese company owns the app. TikTok is now in the unfortunate role of political pawn in a geopolitical clash between the U.S. and its western allies on the one hand, and China on the other. However, TikTok’s users, or “TikTokers” seem unruffled by the issue of data security and privacy, continuing to voluntarily (or unwittingly) trade personal information for the benefits afforded by the app. While a possible partnership with Oracle could save TikTok from being entirely restricted, it is unlikely to affect the extent of data collected by the app. The issue of data security is not platform-specific and should be tackled more comprehensively across the social media market.
Privacy Concerns are Not TikTok Specific
Critics of TikTok — including academics, journalists and politicians — argue that its main purpose is to compile vast personal datasets on citizens that can then be shared with the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok’s representatives dismissed such accusations as unfounded claiming that user data is stored in the U.S. and Singapore, and thus outside the reach of Chinese authorities.
TikTok is not too different from its Silicon Valley-based counterparts in terms of privacy and data security issues. For example, users’ personal data collected by Google and Facebook was used for corporate enrichment and had a role in Brexit and U.S. presidential elections in 2016, but they merely attracted a ‘wrist slap’ in the form of monetary fines, whereas TikTok is facing bans —as of Sunday, September 20, 2020, users will no longer be able to download updated versions of the app from Google or Apple’s app stores. Even if the app were to eventually operate under a U.S. partner, the vexing issue of tech entities collecting personal data will prevail. It seems that the central concern of governments is not the spread of data collected by the app, but rather its Chinese ties.
TikTok is not too different from its Silicon Valley-based counterparts in terms of privacy and data security issues.
Currently, India is the only country that has actually banned the app, but other countries are on the fence. For instance, a TikTok ban was briefly discussed in Australia, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently confirmed that while his government will not ban the app, it will monitor TikTok “very, very closely,” leaving Australian TikTokers with a hovering uncertainty.
TikTokers’ Concerns & Ban Circumventions
While TikTokers might be concerned with the amount of personal data being collected, where it is stored, and who has access to it, this does not seem to discourage their engagement with the app. We have seen this sort of privacy paradox with other social media in the past.
TikTok is especially pertinent for grooming Gen Z’s political expression, personal entertainment, and peer interactions. In the past, TikTokers utilized the app to advocate for topics such as climate change, bush fires, cultural diversity or the alleged censoring of Black Lives Matter content. For young people, TikTok has lowered the barriers to entry for meaningful and prolific participation online, especially where other platforms might feel already saturated with older generations. Similarly, influencers’ fame seems unparalleled on TikTok as the new digital playground of Gen Z.
In response to the sudden precarity of their prized video-app, TikTokers around the world responded by posting humorous skits ridiculing Trump, or making light of China accessing their goofy dancing videos. In this way, users labelled officials’ reactions to TikTok’s security concerns as overkill. Namely, digitally resigned users see loss of control over personal data as inevitable and feel powerless to stop it. So they attempt to regain control by not sharing anything ‘too personal’. In other words, users protect their privacy by only sharing information they believe can be of no use to anyone. Inherently, the ban is meaningless to them and unnecessary. The most hopeful of TikTokers began peddling folklore and issuing tutorials over how to use VPNs to access the TikTok network of foreign countries as a means to “avoid” being banned, but this was largely viewed as too much of a hassle.
TikTok is especially pertinent for grooming Gen Z’s political expression, personal entertainment, and peer interactions.
With a different stake in the app, the response by influencers has been much more aggressive than that of everyday users. TikTok influencers saw their newly minted (online) popularity and (monetary) success shattered. Initially, they started urging each other to sign and submit petitions in plea with the authorities, but soon shifted focus to protecting their following through various strategies. Some started downloading back-up copies of their videos to republish them on other platforms in the worst-case scenario, while others began to cross promote their various social media in earnest, inviting followers to ‘find them’ on the likes of Instagram and YouTube. However, this carryover has proven to be a difficult task. For instance, one of India’s top TikTokers Riyaz Aly (@riyaz.14) boasts an impressive 43.3 million followers on TikTok, but (only) a fraction of that following on Instagram at 9.3 million.
In the wake of this, Instagram readily seized on TikTok’s mercurial fate and launched its own short-video app, Reels, in August 2020. Reels seems to be gaining momentum, with early reports indicating that around one-third of U.S. teens have tried Reels and are likely to use it in the future, too.
With an intent to capitalize on the market gap since the ban of TikTok in India, Instagram integrated Reels as a tab within the app, making it readily available for the bereaved TikTokers in India. Instagram engaged in extensive efforts to incentivize its users to seed content on Reels, with handfuls of TikTokers cross-posting or mimicking content to generate interest among followers. These initial reactions indicate that while TikTok may have been uniquely successful in answering young people’s need for self-expression and participation in anything from entertainment to social and political activism, gratification of this need takes precedence over users’ attachment to the app. However, privacy and data security concerns that are the official reason behind (potential) bans of TikTok will not dissipate if users flock to Reels or if a U.S. partner overtakes TikTok’s operation in the country — the only difference being who is on the receiving end of such data.
Bird’s Eye View
In TikTok’s short lifespan, the dominant public discourse has centered on data security concerns, while failing to acknowledge the app’s positive impact on young people’s lives. TikTok is meaningfully used for self-expression, entertainment, social connection, and even as an income generator. Naturally, young people did not welcome the banning of the app.
If privacy and data security are truly the central concern, banning TikTok will not magically resolve these issues.
If privacy and data security are truly the central concern, banning TikTok will not magically resolve these issues. Faced with actual (India) or potential bans (U.S., Japan, Australia), TikTokers started dabbling with other platforms, such as Reels, and there was even a surge of “foreign” users who migrated to TikTok’s Chinese sister-app, Douyin, via VPN. Privacy and data-security issues are merely displaced onto other platforms, alongside an inevitable loss of creative engagement and discourse pioneered by a generation of young people, as facilitated by TikTok’s unique features and functions.
Instead of banning TikTok, policy makers should focus on regulating this volatile and pervasive domain of our digital lives, and zero in on the longstanding issues of data security at their root.
Dr. Milovan Savic is an internet researcher at the Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne, Australia).
Dr. Crystal Abidin is Senior Research Fellow & ARC DECRA Fellow in Internet Studies at Curtin University (Perth, Australia). Learn more at wishcrys.com.
