It has not been long that India banned Tik Tok and 58 other Chinese apps due to security concern. A week earlier, the president of the United States also signed an executive order to ban TikTok and WeChat. Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hinted that executive orders against TikTok and WeChat could be broader than just those two apps..
The security and sovereignty concerns over Chinese apps are snowballing. Japan is also looking at banning TikTok. For any tech product, Japan is an important market to gain traction. It was the first big success for ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. China has threatened Japan about the impact of such action on bilateral relations. Clearly stating that banning TikTok would have a “large impact” on bilateral relations.
The app is banned in Malaysia. Indonesia banned TikTok in 2018. The French National Data Protection Authority has also initiated the investigation against TikTok over privacy issues. Authorities in the European Union are also looking at data practices of TikTok.
In January 2020, the Australian government asked defence personnel to delete TikTok app from their phones. Australian intelligence agencies were also assigned the task of assessing TikTok’s threat. A recent conversation in Australian political circles suggests that the government may consider a ban on Chinese app.
Such action by all Quad+ countries could have a domino effect on other countries in Europe and Asia and other countries may also look at security implications of Chinese app. The ban in India and the United States has set the ball rolling.
When China banned ByteDance’s apps in 2018
In April 2018, the Chinese State Administration of Radio and Television (SART) asked ByteDance to take down its app Jinri Toutiao for three weeks and asked to shut down Neihan Duanzi from app stores. Joke sharing app Neihan Duanzi was accused of hosting vulgar content on its platform. In China, a political joke directed towards leadership, party and ideology can be termed as a vulgar content. With thirty million user base, Neihan Daunzi created a unique subculture.
The app came under the crosshair of SART after platform floated live streaming ability. Detecting and censoring live streaming is a difficult task.
ByteDance’s other app, Jinri Toutiao which means Todays Headlines was banned in China for three weeks for not proactively promoting news from Chinese state-run media entities. The news aggregation app was criticised for not promoting state-run media outlets. AI-driven news platform was accused of not prioritising party, leadership news.
On April 11, 2018, the maverick founder of ByteDance Zhang Yiming apologised publicly in a letter for not following core social values. In a letter, He wrote “ByteDance took the wrong direction in delivering content that was contrary to socialist core values” He further stated that state authorities have provided the company with support in the company’s growth. However, the company faltered in understanding the demands of the communist party.
He further wrote that the company so far had not been fully attentive towards corporate social responsibility, to promote positive energy and to grasp correct guidance of public opinion.
The words such as corporate social responsibility, positive energy, correct guidance of public opinion may sound benevolent. In China, these innocuous words have deeply political and authoritative meaning.
Guidance of public opinion means media outlet will not publish content that is contrary to party’s official line. Media outlets should promote party policies. Any news that may be harmful to the party and its leadership ‘core’ must be snubbed. News that may jeopardise the reputation of the party leadership must not find a place in publications or digital media outlet.
The media outlets as well as a news recommendation software system has a responsibility to guide and shape public opinion that is conducive for the party and leadership. Guidance of public opinion does not have national boundaries. Hence opinion of people outside China must also be shaped through United Fronts Works.
Positive energy reflects actions that are in line with CPC. Any criticism or collusion with the party is termed as negative energy.
Zhang Yiming in his letter lamented that as the company grew, it did not invest much in supervision content hosted on his platform. As a start-up company developing rapidly in the wake of the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, we profoundly understand that our rapid development was an opportunity afforded us by this great era. I thank this era. I thank the historic opportunity of economic reform and opening, and I thank the support the government has given for the development of the technology industry.
18th National Congress was held in 2012. Xi Jinping assumed leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in the 18th National Congress. The period there onward is termed as China’s New Era.
He stated that recent problems in the company is a weakness of the “four consciousnesses” deficiencies in education on the socialist core values and deviation from public opinion guidance.
Four consciousnesses consist of consciousness of the ideology of the communist party, consciousness of great Chinese dream, consciousness of political leadership and consciousness of the alignment with the party. We have not acknowledged that technology must be led by the socialist core value system, broadcasting positive energy, suiting the demands of the era (Era of Political leadership – Xi Jinping), and respecting common convention.
We want to make a global platform for creation and conversation. This demands that we must ensure that the of “creation” and “conversation” are positive, healthy and beneficial, that they can offer positive energy to the era (XI Jinping), and to the people.
I profoundly recognise that the company’s development must stick closely to the era and to the main theme of national development. Zhang Yiming clearly mentions that his company will ensure that its global apps and platforms will serve Chinese leadership. Today the authorities have pointed out problems in our company, and this is a well-intentioned reminder and an encouragement to us. The company will work immediately to bring about change — changing our own thoughts and changing our methods.
Zhang suggested following countermeasures to align products of ByteDance with the Communist Party and Xi Jinping’s leadership (the new era)
- 1. Strengthening the work of Party construction, carrying out education among our entire staff on the four consciousnesses, socialist core values, the guidance of public opinion, and laws and regulations.
- 2. Further deepening cooperation with state-run media, prioritizing authoritative media content, ensuring that authoritative media voices are broadcast to strength.
- 3. Strengthening the editor-in-chief responsibility system, comprehensively correcting deficiencies in algorithmic and machine review of content, steadily strengthening human operations and review, raising the current number of operational review staff from 6,000 to 10,000 persons for content review.
ByteDance later stated that Communist party members with political understanding will be preferred for the job.
The letter underlines the stark reality that Chinese businesses have no option but to serve the agenda of the communist party and its leadership. The letter is a perfect example of how CCP uses censorship on Chinese companies to align them with the party.
In June 2017 China enacted National Intelligence Law. The law makes it mandatory for Chinese Citizens as well as companies to help the state in intelligence gathering. Article 7 of this law underlines that the State protects individuals and organizations that support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work. Section 9 underlines that State will reward individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to national intelligence work.
With an authoritative rule and supporting legal framework, Chinese companies are an extended instrument of the party.
TikTok, for long, has been saying that it does not send data to China or censor any content. After brief ban of TikTok in Indonesia in 2018, ByteDance acquired Indonesian news aggregation app ‘Baca Berita (BaBe)‘. According to this report, after acquisition ByteDance started censoring content criticising of the Chinese government, leadership or party in its news aggregation app. ByteDance invested in news aggregation app in India.
The app’s role is also under investigation for fueling recent rites in the United States in close coordination with Chinese Consulate in Houston. Chinese companies may have been claiming that they have no connection with the Chinese Communist Party. However, the letter of a Chinese CEO and legal framework for intelligence sharing leave no scope for ambiguity. That’s just one example China’s Three warfare strategy hinges upon media and psychological warfare. For such a strategy to succeed, global censorship and control of information flow are critical for China. Such control can only be achieved and leveraged through China-based media aggregation apps as well as short video apps which can be exploited to fuel rites or create political disturbances in democratic countries.
China, over a period, has denied access to non-Chinese social media apps, news media due to national security concerns. Other nations are also coming to terms with the same reality. Chinese businesses have no choice but to follow orders from the party. So other nations have no choice but to ban.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s).
