The TikTok pile on has begun, or to be more accurate the pile off. Last week the European Commission ordered staff to uninstall the TikTok app by ByteDance from their phones and devices.
The commission said it is necessary to protect it “against cybersecurity threats, and actions which may be exploited for cyberattacks”.
The app was launched in China in 2016 as “Douyin” and then went global in 2017 as TikTok. The two use the same software but run on separate networks. There is evidence that this is done to censor what Chinese users are shown, including LGBTQ-related material and political criticism.
TikTok has been accused of harvesting user data and sharing this with government officials in China, where ByteDance is owned and based. It has repeatedly denied the accusations.
The EU finally making good on the ban threat seemingly kicked off a chain reaction that the West has been primed for.
On Monday, the US issued a directive to all federal agencies to ensure their employees and contractors remove TikTok from state-issued devices within 30 days.
The US House of Representatives passed legislation to this effect in December 2022. Certain US government departments, universities and even US-based businesses such as Wells Fargo Bank instituted voluntary bans before that directive. US office of management & budget director Shalanda Young said this was a “critical step forward in addressing the risks presented by the app to sensitive government data”.
Not to be left out, Canada announced a ban on the app on all government device from Tuesday, after a review by its chief information officer, which found the app posed “an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security”.
Coincidentally during my research for this edition, an email landed in my inbox telling me I was graduating from a wait-list to access “an early preview of the new Bing — your AI-powered answer engine”. I had to download the Microsoft Edge Dev browser too, just in case you ever doubt my commitment to the column cause.
With this new AI-guided rock in hand I decided to take aim at two birds: explore Bing’s new features and capabilities, and prod at what we think we know about TikTok privacy issues. Google (on Safari) and Bing (on Edge Dev) grabbed the same Wikipedia snippet in answer to my search query, but that’s where the similarities ended.
Displayed on the right-hand side of the search results page, Bing’s summary is a mash-up of info from various sites (listed at the end of the summary), displayed as chunky, bite-sized factoids complete with a timeline and images, all clickable and digestible. It genuinely looks curated and is very appealing.
My gripe with this, though, is that the more curated it looks the more this implies “verified”, despite being an auto-generated output. Extracts used should have dates and sources displayed adjacent, especially when pulling material from less-than-venerable sites like thefactsite.com. In fact (pardon the pun), most links sent me to articles from 2019, which is basically prehistory when viewed against TikTok’s lifespan. In the Chat tab, however, the sources are much clearer within generated answers, if less aesthetic.
Not to get bogged down in a review of Bing here, I will say that despite the issues of concern above, it is impressive. Contextual, interactive deeplinks right from the search results were particularly appealing. That it can access current information puts it ahead of ChatGPT in my books. So much so, that I am now forced to rethink the claim I’ve made many times, that “bing it” will never have the social power “googling” has enjoyed.
When I asked the Bing AI Chat tool “is TikTok spying on users?” it replied: “There have been some reports and allegations that TikTok is spying on its users. Some of these claims are based on a security feature in iOS 14 that caught TikTok copying text from a user’s clipboard every few seconds. Others are based on a software researcher who found code on TikTok that appears to be spying on user keystrokes and could be used to steal sensitive information. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has admitted to collecting some data from US users for advertising purposes.”
That’s actually a solid summation that doesn’t overstate or minimise, using the language journalists and academics use, like “some reports”, and “claim”. And all hyperlinked direct to sources, in the answer and footnotes. Colour me impressed.
We really don’t know if TikTok is spying, not just collecting data but sharing it with government authorities. The banning actions taken by the national and regional authorities above may be based on (to borrow a phrase) an abundance of caution for now, or (cynically, as Chinese authorities claimed) insecurities and unfounded suspicions.
In response to the directives, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry told reporters on Tuesday: “The US government should respect the principles of market economy and fair competition, stop suppressing the companies”. Not content with mere antitrust accusations, she added snark for good measure, saying: “How unsure of itself can the world’s top superpower like the US be to fear young people’s favourite app like that?”
So we can add TikTok bans to the “spy balloon” incident earlier this month, as symptoms of the escalation of animosity between the US and China — where tech is the weapon and the battleground. This isn’t a purely Western issue though. The app is banned nationally in India. Bans (some temporary) have been implemented in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Indonesia, and notably Taiwan, which is at the very centre of the storm.
Not us though. For the record, we love a bit of Chinese investment though the criticisms from US politicians last week may make it harder for our leaders to keep playing both sides.
• Thompson Davy, a freelance journalist, is an impactAFRICA fellow and WanaData member.
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