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Taiwan is Restricting Chinese Video Apps Like TikTok for Fear of Disinformation
Chinese-owned video apps are taking over the world — but some countries are worried about that
For years, it has been widely known that Chinese social media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo are heavily censored and subject to direct control by the state. But as relatively few used those platforms outside of China’s Great Firewall, they were not considered a threat to global discourse.
Then came TikTok. ByteDance’s video streaming app has become of one the first Chinese platform to go global. Alongside other Chinese streaming apps including Tencent’s DouYu or Baidu’s iQiyi, Chinese tech companies are, finally, innovating instead of imitating and tapping into the growing global mobile video market. It’s not just the United States — India, Turkey, Russia, and Mexico are seeing Chinese apps gain millions of users.
With this growth, through, comes concerns about the role of the Chinese government. The lines between China’s tech giants and the state or the ruling Communist Party are blurry.
And as The Guardian reported today, ByteDance appears to limit the reach of videos on TikTok that contain information deemed sensitive to Chinese interests.
“The Chinese government controls the business model and platform operation platforms of these private tech companies very tightly,” said Titus Chen, associate professor at the National Sun Yat-Sen University’s Institute of Political Science in Taiwan. “This control… gives the Chinese government power that any dictator or leader dreams about.”
Moreover, China is not shy about its ambitions to control media narratives globally.
“The Communist Party seeks control over key nodes of information, increasingly outside of China,” said Sarah Cook, senior research analyst for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at Freedom House. “At some point it will be in their interest to shift the public debate in a certain direction. Governments should be aware of that, and should be paying attention.”
There is evidence this might already be happening. Hong Kong has seen consistent agitation since the introduction of a controversial extradition…
