Late March saw the internet broken by the grilling of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew by top politicians in the US Congress. Strongly reminiscent of the last high- profile questioning of fellow social media titan and humanoid Mark Zuckerberg, the difference in this instance was that the cause for US concern with Facebook had tangible evidence of the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal. Chair Cathy Rodgers’ main argument was that the Chinese-owned app should be banned due to security concerns over user data privacy. She proclaimed TikTok as a weapon of the Chinese Communist Party, and that it didn’t embrace US values. Questioning largely focused on its China-based owner ByteDance, although it was often hard to take some of the US dialogue seriously, with questions from one politician implying he didn’t actually know what Wi-Fi was. Of course, the TikTok community leapt on the opportunity to make reams of viral videos that emphasised the baselessness of many of the questions. There was also a lot of content aimed at policymakers, pleading with them to think carefully about the possibility of a ban. Many throughout lockdown have developed full-blown careers using the app, and it has its own ecosystem that 150 million monthly US users are a working part of. But with US president Joe Biden calling for either an outright ban or the US high density of silly animals and dancing holds enough influence to frighten even the most powerful country in the world. Is the US justified, or are we only seeing this through the western lens? arm to be sold to a domestic buyer, it seems an app with a THE INTERROGATION OF SHOU ZI CHEW
SINISTER ALGORITHMS Thanks to intelligent algorithms, users can get sucked into metaphorical rabbit holes of misleading or even extremist content. This, in turn, can spark harmful ideologies which lead to real-world violence. Several perpetrators of deadly shootings have been linked to incel
answers are confident and fluently written,
if sometimes spectacularly wrong,” writes Ian Sample for The Guardian . Right and wrong often get conflated on social media. To lessen the impact of misinformation, platforms can implement content filtering and flagging, as well as account removal. Companies have now begun flagging content related to elections, Covid-19 and other genuinely influential topics as potentially inaccurate – but only after much damage had already been done. Donald Trump, who used Twitter to falsely claim that he’d won the
(involuntary celibate) culture, which finds its voice in the web’s darkest corners. “Sometimes I download TikTok and Snapchat just to
check the algorithm, and I say I’m a 13-year-old boy,” Mie says. “It feeds me a lot of highly sexualised, even perverse content.” According to Mie, pornography is another major issue
2020 presidential election, was finally banned from the platform only after inciting an insurrection on the United States Capitol. Gone are the days of pretending
WATCH ME! Highlights from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony before congress
that digital actions don’t have tangible consequences.
REGULATIONS LIKE GDPR AND CCPA ARE REACTIVE RATHER THAN PROACTIVE
@feedzinesocial
Powered by FlippingBook