Trust At A Premium, Social Media Scorned

Michael Hedges March 15, 2023 Follow on Twitter

Billions of people enjoy, arguably, social media. Some are users, sharing little bits, pieces of their mind. Most others are more passive, scavengers of ideas, occasionally far out. Social media portals are generally free-to-access. In the words of one famous social media developer; "Senator, we sell advertising."

Out on the fringes of society are the social media trolls, propaganda and disinformation purveyors and other criminals. Social media has simplified their activities. Early platform developers took a rather nonchalant attitude toward the bad stuff as user numbers - and ad revenues - soared. Media buyers were their best friends.

Social isolation from the coronavirus pandemic took social media platforms to unimaginable heights. With traditional media shrinking this decade, they became the major reference point for news, information, entertainment and simple contact as well as grievance, hate and other delinquency. Chinese technology developer ByteDance introduced TikTok in 2017. With its focus on short videos and other social media portals ageing, it quickly became a worldwide hit. It is a font of wealth for certain social media influencers.

Last week Denmark’s public broadcaster DR advised employees not to use the TikTok app on work phones, reported Journalisten DK (March 9). Other Danish employers are also discouraging TikTok usage, beginning with the Prime Minister’s office, the Ministry of Climate and Energy, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Justice simply banning all usage. All of this follows advice from the Defence Intelligence Agency's Center for Cyber Security (CFCS) warning about potential security issues.

"We have naturally followed the debate closely and carried out a thorough assessment of the security risk,” said DR deputy director Niels Ammitzbøl. “On this basis, all employees are now advised against using and installing TikTok on work phones. In order to ensure that you can continue to work journalistically with the media when necessary, separate mobile phones are now purchased for TikTok use.”

A “pilot project” with TikTok planned for DR radio network P4 has been discontinued. “We don't think it's relevant that we ourselves come out with a pilot project when we now discourage our employees from using the app,” added Mr. Ammitzbøl. DR introduced the TikTok project for the P4 network last September. The reasons were obvious: nearly half (47%) of Danes 15 to 24 years use it daily. Last year Sweden’s public TV broadcaster SVT banned TikTok from work phones.

The European Council, European Parliament and European Commission imposed a ban for workplace usage of TikTok, citing cybersecurity concerns, reported Euronews (March 13). Removing the app from personal devices was “strongly recommended. The Belgium federal government announced a similar TikTok ban on devices used by government employees. The Danish government, cited above, “required employees to uninstall TikTok on service phones and other official devices as soon as possible if they have previously installed it.”

The US federal government and Canadian government followed, citing the possibility that ByteDance would share “user data with China’s authoritarian government.” In the US, children’s mental health advocates have warned that TikTok content “harms teenager’s mental health.”

For its part, TikTok and ByteDance have vociferously defended their product and this week offered to separate the two companies, reported Bloomberg (March 15). The company "has not provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we if asked,” said a spokesperson to the BBC (February 28) .ByteDance has also floated specialized security measures for US and EU users to avoid more stringent bans. Skeptics regularly note the 2017 Chinese National Intelligence Law that requires all organization and citizens to "support, assist and co-operate” with intelligence agencies. Access to foreign mobile apps has been blocked in China for several years.

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