Russia fined TikTok for failing to remove prohibited content. The results of Romania's presidential election were rejected over concerns that the app was used to expand foreign influence. Albania has banned TikTok for a year after another boy stabbed a teenager to death during an online argument.
“Either TikTok protects Albania's children, or Albania protects its children from TikTok,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said on X.
That was just last month.
In the United States, where about 150 million people use the app, TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance this week asked the Supreme Court to pass a law that would force them to sell or ban the app.
TikTok has come under legal and political scrutiny around the world in recent years, with full closures in at least 20 countries as governments grow wary of its ties to China and its widespread influence, especially among young people. facing a targeted or partial ban.
Despite increased scrutiny, TikTok remains incredibly popular around the world. Over 1 billion people use the app every month.
TikTok's novelty lies in its proprietary algorithm, which recommends a constant stream of content (mostly short videos) tailored to keep people scrolling. ByteDance pioneered this technology in 2016 with Douyin, TikTok's sister app. Douyin has become one of the most popular apps in China, driving the majority of the company's revenue. ByteDance launched TikTok in 2017, believing it had the potential to become a hit overseas.
But as TikTok's algorithm gained attention around the world, lawmakers said it quickly transformed from the realm of cat videos and dance trends into a force with the potential for social, political, and economic disruption. expressed concern.
Officials from Montana to New Zealand have warned that TikTok can be used to incite violence, spread false information and worsen mental health. Lawmakers are also concerned that TikTok could share user data, such as location and browsing history, with the Chinese government. Albania's Prime Minister Rama said young people needed to be protected from the “terrible pitfalls of algorithms”.
TikTok argued that concerns are overblown. The company has a team dedicated to combating influence manipulation and is making its efforts public, the company said in a statement. TikTok's algorithm aims to “maintain content neutrality” and ranks content based on what users are interested in, the company said.
TikTok said ByteDance is majority-owned by global investors. At the same time, the Chinese government asserts its authority to oppose any sale.
As other Chinese companies seek to expand overseas, TikTok has become both an example and a wake-up call. The app showed that a new kind of entertainment, first popular in China, could spread elsewhere. But it also paved the way for a counterattack against Chinese apps like Temu and Shein.
Kevin Xu, the US-based founder of Interconnected Capital, a hedge fund that invests in artificial intelligence technology, said: “Every Chinese entrepreneur needs a degree in political science or international relations now to get into the future.'' I feel it,” he says.
Jangang Lee, chief executive officer of Singapore consultancy Momentum Works, said other companies with global internet products such as Meta and Google were also under intense scrutiny around the world. “But because they are a US company, they don't face the mistrust that TikTok faces from Western politicians and regulators,” Lee said.
Here's how the government is targeting TikTok.
Total ban: India and Nepal
A ban in the U.S. could cut TikTok out of one of its most important markets. But TikTok has already experienced losing what was its largest audience at the time. The Indian government banned the app in 2020 after geopolitical tensions between India and China escalated into hand-to-hand combat along the border.
TikTok disappeared from app stores and its website was blocked, forcing creators who made a living from the app to rebuild their audiences on other platforms. Although some homegrown alternatives have emerged, the biggest winners have been American tech giants. YouTube and Instagram currently have about twice as many users in India as they do in the US.
Authorities in neighboring Nepal have taken TikTok offline for nearly a year after the government refused to curb content it called hate speech that disrupted “social harmony.” The ban was overturned in August after the current prime minister, Sharma Oli, came to power for the fourth time.
Fines and enforcement of local partnerships: Russia and Indonesia
The Russian government has repeatedly fined TikTok for allowing the distribution of content that does not follow the country's censorship rules, including themes such as sex, gender and feminism. Two recent fines imposed by Russian courts in the past six months totaled approximately $90,000.
In Indonesia, TikTok is betting big on online shopping as a new revenue stream. The app has about the same number of users in Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest country, as it does in the United States. But in 2023, the government passed a law forcing TikTok to shut down its online shopping operations within days.
TikTok Shop was only able to reopen after merging with Indonesia's largest e-commerce company, Tokopedia. While rebuilding an audience has been slow for many store owners, for TikTok the ordeal has come with perks. That means access to a network of delivery drivers and logistics services built to deliver packages to Indonesia's 17,000 islands.
Blocked on government devices: Taiwan, UK, Canada, etc.
Some governments are trying to balance concerns about TikTok's security with freedom of expression.
Taiwan banned the app from government devices in 2019. But officials say they are not considering an outright ban because they don't want to suppress Taiwan's culture of public discussion. Similar approaches have been adopted by the UK, Australia and France, as well as the European Union's executive bodies and New Zealand's parliament.
TikTok was already banned from using government-issued mobile devices in Canada when the government ordered the company to close its Canadian offices in November due to the national security risks posed by ByteDance. .
In a document filed in a Canadian court last month to challenge the order, TikTok argued that the Canadian government had directed it to postpone overdue paperwork until the U.S. decides on its approach to the company. .
