Argument in Support of Banning Tik Tok in America (Essay Sample)

Student Name Prof. Course 30th April 2024 Introduction TikTok presents security risks to the United States Government through data insecurity. This is the top reason the American Government insists on banning TikTok. TikTok is an addictive short video-sharing application which hit 2.3 billion downloads in August 2022. The majority of its users are young people under the age of 30. The application is very influential and based on a very powerful algorithm. The threat of TikTok is also based on its addiction, misinformation and disinformation, Children's safety, mental health, ability to spread propaganda, Chinese affiliation and the algorithm. TikTok is a video-sharing application with great success in the United States. According to Eddy, over 60% of Americans under 30 use it. There are 170 million TikTok users in America, with 10 million small business owners who use the application to create leads and make sales. TikTok is owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance. ByteDance states that 60% of its ownership belongs to international investors. 20% of TikTok is owned by TikTok employees. The company also reports that the owner, Zhang Yiming, owns only 20% of the company. Though ByteDance was incorporated in the Cayman Islands, it is a Chinese company that is headquartered in Haidian Beijing. Tik Tok Inc. is headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore. TikTok should be banned due to the mental well-being, social safety and the political risks it presents. Chinese Government Influence over Chinese Companies. The use of TikTok presents a considerably high data breach and misuse risk. The 170 million American users avail substantial big data to the Chinese company for various dangerous political and economic undertakings. President Biden signed the proposed bill called Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (H.R. 7521). The law has provided that within 270 days, ByteDance, which owns TikTok, should either sell the Video-sharing application to a non-Chinese company or the application will be banned totally from the United States. President Biden signed the bill on the 24th of April 2024 after overwhelming bipartisan support of Congress for the bill. The State of Montana tried to ban the application by directing Applestore and Playstore to remove the application and limit access within the state. A federal judge blocked the law. The government's conGovernment that the Chinese government its influence to demand data from ByteDance. While ByteDance has claimed that the Chinese government has not yet asked for any information, research shows that it can compel the owners to provide any required information. Bao Fan disappeared in February 2023 for several days. The Chinese government denied him for undisclosed claims. Jack Ma was detained and disappeared for three months. He has since been staying outside China (Wang). Many Chinese leaders and business people, including Xu Ming and Xiao, were detained by the Chinese government. According to Wang, ByteDance itself had problems with the Chinese GoverGovernment it pulled down the Joke App, and Zhang Yiming had to apologize for the violation of the socialist core values. ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, has come under direct confrontation and intimidation from the CCP government. The CCP government has proven not to take any acts of opposition to its requests, values and objectives. According to He, China has powerful control over the TikTok algorithm and may prefer closing down TikTok rather than selling it. Despite the claims by Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of Tik Tok, that ByteDance is a private company, the influence of the Chinese Government is a threat to the Chinese-based company Executives (Kinder). He also argued that TikTok is based in America. Data Security Shou Zi Chew admitted that some executives in ByteDance can access data collected by TikTok. The application collects various data, including locations, contact lists, personal details, I.P. addresses, faceprints and voiceprints—the American government government employees from using government devices. The information collected from the users can have considerable influence in America. Tik Tok created a 'Texas Project', which is a data securing structure to wall off data collected from Americans from the rest of the world. This project was created in conjunction with Oracle (Kinder). The project failed to convince American lawmakers that it was effective and created permanent immunity from Beijing's influence. Misinformation and Disinformation TikTok created an infodemic. This is too much information, and there is confusing, wrong, and misleading information among it. Short video sharing with the motivation to make money created an incentive to post any content that can go viral and build clout. The incentive leads to the hurried preparation of content, which leads to misinformation. Sometimes, content creators create disinformation due to the monetary and clout incentives. TikTok does not have an effective method of detecting and preventing the effects of an infodemic. The system does not have an effective tool and management to warn consumers of false or potentially misleading information. When people are in a crisis, like during the COVID outbreak, they search and consume too much information while trying to understand the tragedy. The search for information creates a desirable audience for the topic, pushing content creators to provide relevant information for the audience to consume. People looking for information about a tragedy end up consuming too much content, both from experts and non-experts. Some of the information they consume misleads them. TikTok has further strengthened citizen journalism, which provides unregulated journalism that offers unchecked facts which are consumed by some of the audience and authentic information. Propaganda and Manipulation Propaganda can be spread in two ways: from content creators that unintentionally create misleading viral information or malicious Chinese Governments leveraging the algorithm, data, and TikTok audience. The TikTok algorithm is the most potent recommendation machine in the social media industry. According to the Vision of Humanity, the TikTok algorithm is the most valuable property of TikTok. The application focused on the interest graph instead of the social graph. The social graph like Twitter and Facebook create a social circle and connection. The connections dictate what a user consumes. The algorithms of other social media are focused on creating social circles. TikTok, as in Netflix, is more focused on a person's interests. The content for their pages is selected according to their interests. TikTok is seen as an editor for a news media company instead of a social media company. It produces thousands of pieces of information about the same or different topics. The algorithm determines the users' interest and pushes the content to various people. This can be used as a tool to create propaganda and influence people. TikTok already has the tools to create and make powerful propaganda. It has a 170 million audience from the United States. It has collected data from these people and understands their interests, including political and social beliefs. The application has an algorithm to sort the data and push propaganda in an effective way to different people, capitalizing on individual interests. Propaganda, brainwash and systematic influence of perception on political, economic and social factors is a strategy used as an instrument of war or influence. A country can use propaganda as an instrument of war to create strong beliefs against people or nations. Systematic influence can be used to change what people know and impart new knowledge that advances private motives. TikTok algorithm can systematically influence personal attitudes subconsciously. China is interested in influencing American political, economic and social landscapes to accommodate their interests. China has a great interest in trade, financial models and America...