CHINA WATCHThe American TikTok Deal Doesn’t Address the Platform’s Potential for Manipulation, Only Who Profits
If we want to protect democratic information systems, we need to focus on reducing the vulnerabilities in our relationship with media platforms – platforms with surveillance power to know what we will like, the algorithmic power to curate our information diet and control of platform incentives, and rules and features that affect who gains influence. The biggest challenge is to make platforms less riggable, and thus less weaponizable, if only for the reason that motivated the TikTok ban: we don’t want our adversaries, foreign or domestic, to have power over us.
On Sept. 25, the Donald Trump administration in the United States again extended the TikTok ban-or-divest law, possibly for the last time. The latest extension to the law, which was passed in 2024 by the Joe Biden administration, includes a deal to transfer TikTok to American owners as a condition required to avoid a ban.
This raises the question on the validity of the warnings about the app as a tool of Chinese influence and whether American ownership will help.
Canada should be watching closely, because anxieties about foreign manipulation and social media exist north of the border, too. These range from bans on TikTok and concerns about Beijing-linked surveillance to efforts like Bill C-18 aimed at safeguarding domestic news sources.
What happens in the Canadian information environment has always been shaped by the U.S., a dependence that is even more precarious now that American politics has turned hostile to Canada.
TikTok Concerns
TikTok is not the only digital media platform susceptible to worries about hostile influence. All major platforms introduce the same vulnerabilities. If the policy objective is to enhance the security of democracy, then a focus on TikTok is too narrow and divestment as a solution accomplishes little (especially because it appears China will retain control of the algorithm).
Worries about TikTok come down to two big fears. The first is that it functions as a spying machine, feeding data to the Chinese government. The spying concern isn’t just about espionage, learning about sensitive infrastructure and activities, but also personal — the software itself might be unsafe and can be used to track individuals.
As a result, many countries have banned the app on government devices, and securing data along national borders may well address this.
The second fear, more vivid in the public and political imagination, is that TikTok functions as an influence machine. Its algorithm can be tweaked to push propaganda, sway opinion, censor views or even meddle in elections.
Such worries reached a fever pitch in America in 2023, when Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” suddenly went viral on TikTok. Lawmakers seized on this as evidence that TikTok could amplify extremist content, reinforcing fears that the platform can be weaponized.
These worries aren’t merely speculative. Investigations have shown that topics sensitive to China, such as Tiananmen Square and Tibet, are harder to find or conspicuously absent on TikTok compared to other platforms.
