tijaco

more thinly veiled propaganda

There are some politicians in Australia saying that we should ban TikTok. Here is my take on this topic, and why it is even being discussed in the first place.

This is the next in a long line of attacks, both thinly veiled and explicit, on China in recent months. As the empire of the United States begins its descent into abject failure, they are not going down without a fight. Their quasi-colonies from the UK to India and Australia are taking their rhetoric to new heights. The suggestions of a ban on TikTok in Australia is as about as predictable as it is infeasible.

But why does the United States hate China so much? As much as anything, old empires don’t enjoy new powers taking their place. As an apparently independent country, Australia shouldn’t be taking sides. Unfortunately, it is inevitable that we will. The alternative is a coup and change of leadership, which has occurred at least twice in our history. Our media machine sets up this deep propaganda, with not one mainstream media outlet in the country making the case that we should even take a balanced approach on China. In order to find that perspective, we are required to either listen to the independent experts on the topic or find niche independent blogs. This lacking diversity of opinion will see us fall with the sinking ship.

TikTok serves as a good example for just how lopsided this perspective is. It, along with seemingly every other technology company, has had its share of data sharing scandals. Google exposed user data and didn’t tell anyone because they thought it might damage their reputation. Facebook and Twitter were both embroiled in the well-known Cambridge Analytica scandal in which data was harvested for political advertising. Did we ever think about banning Google, Facebook (including Instagram) or Twitter? Of course not. So, what has TikTok done that is so egregious as to face potential bans in Australia?

Australian politicians are arguing that TikTok is being “used and abused” by the Chinese government. Any evidence for this activity whatsoever? None. TikTok’s data is stored in Singapore and the United States and is not subject to Chinese law. It is true that it’s difficult to track data and we cannot say for sure that the data is not being sent back to China. But if so, why do we care? And if we were to be consistent in this line of argument, we would require all tech companies with Australian data to have that data stored in Australia.

This counts out Google, whose data centres are spread across the world. No more Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, whose data centres are spread across the United States. Again, if we reject the artificial narrative that the United States is somehow morally superior to China, we can see these attacks for what they are: a complete farce.

The United States’ treasured first amendment on freedom of speech is one of the cornerstones of their nation, but there are loopholes. These social media companies flirt with the line around freedom of speech regularly. As is a familiar pattern, first they censor what are widely seen as extreme opinions. Alex Jones being wiped from social media is the first shot. Now, we are seeing more and more reasonable commentators being censored. The algorithms on platforms like YouTube have been found to favour establishment media companies, which is another move towards censorship. They will inch closer and closer, taking more and more power, until such a time when they have the discourse of the community under a tight leash, just as they do in the TV and radio landscape.

But do we regulate these social media companies to assure the semblance freedom of speech is maintained? Do we threaten them with bans in whole countries because of their data scandals and censorship? Of course not. There are big changes that need to occur to maintain open discourse throughout all of media, not just online. These big changes will surely be the subject of future pieces. For now, I note these problems to illustrate that our attention is being concentrated on TikTok for far less evidence of wrongdoing than we have for US social media companies.

The final point on the issue of TikTok being banned in Australia is that of its infeasibility. As reported in the Conversation, the government would first need to request its removal from the Google Play and Apple App Store. If this was to occur, there would be a problem with the likely millions that already have the app installed on their phone, and the potential for new users to simply use a foreign country’s app store. The next (and more draconian) step is to block access to TikTok’s servers, which could still be circumvented with a VPN if people really wanted to use it.

Finally, given TikTok has already been around for a while, it has likely almost reached saturation in Australia. This means that anyone who was ever going to download it has likely already downloaded it and is using it regularly. If Australians’ data was going to be sent to the propaganda minister of the Chinese Communist Party and used to propagandise us into joining their evil cult to dominate the world, it would be too late to stop it.

Luckily for the United States, our population is already hypnotised by their own spell. The propaganda machine has worked with remarkable effectiveness. Should they wage war on a rising China, many Australians would be already be ripe for the fight.