TikTok suppression study is another reason to ban the app
Washington Examiner
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That the TikTok app collects reams of personal data on everyone who uses it and that Chinese law obliges TikTok’s parent company to share all of the data with the Chinese Communist Party are established facts.
A new study by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute has found that not only is TikTok collecting information about Americans to give to China, but it is also suppressing content that is inconvenient to the CCP.
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Researchers found that content featuring hashtags related to subjects such as China’s dispute with India over Kashmir, the Tiananmen Square massacre, and the Uyghur genocide was far less frequent on TikTok than on other social media platforms such as Instagram.
For example, while there were 2.2 posts featuring #TaylorSwift on Instagram for every one on TikTok, there were 206 posts on Instagram with #HongKongProtests for each one on TikTok. Similar ratios were found for #StandWithKashmir, #FreeUyghurs, and #DalaiLama.
TikTok cannot deny the merit of the research because it used a similar methodology last month to show its platform was not biased against Israel.
“We assess a strong possibility that content on TikTok is either amplified or suppressed based on its alignment with the interests of the Chinese government,” the report concluded. “It is not believable that this could happen organically.”
TikTok is not a harmless video app. It is a major source of news for Generation Z, which, not coincidentally, is also the only generation to say it isn’t proud to be an American.
Congress must take action to stop America’s most dangerous foreign adversary from spying on our young and poisoning their minds. Bipartisan legislation has been introduced that would ban TikTok from mobile devices, and President Joe Biden has signaled he would be open to signing legislation that would create a process for addressing national security threats from foreign products and services.
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Giving more power to the executive branch is rarely the best answer to a problem. But the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department should already be assessing threats posed by products and services from TikTok and Huawei.
Be that as it may, the threat posed by TikTok has been amply established, and it is time for Congress to eliminate the danger.