Not that I am surprised by this. But CNN did a test of TikTok and surprise, TikTok appears to censor content that is critical of China. To get the full context of this report, you can watch it via this link. But here’s the TL:DR. CNN anchor Jake Tapper interviewed TikTok’s head of public policy last year asking if they censored content critical of the Chinese party. “We do not censor content on behalf of any government,” the spokesperson answered.
But this week CNN reviewed data the total number of hashtags on both Instagram and on TikTok for topics that might be embarrassing to the Chinese government — and found stark differences.
- Hashtag #Uyghurs appears in 10.4X more posts on Instagram than on TikTok.
- Hashtag #Tiananmen (referencing the 1989 pro-democracy protests) is 153 more likely to appear on Instagram than on TikTok.
On the surface, it seems that TikTok is suppressing these hashtags. Though I will point out that Instagram has been around way longer than TikTok which might account for this. But it does seem like one hell of a coincidence that a Chinese owned social media app has way less content that is critical of the Chinese government.
So why does this matter? TikTok is being looked at by Congress in relation to trying to manipulate how China and their policies are viewed. Which is another way of saying that they are looking at Chinese propaganda. That could lead to TikTok being banned. Thus TikTok really needs to explain this in a way that makes sense and is plausible.
So how about it TikTok?
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This entry was posted on December 3, 2023 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags TikTok. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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TikTok Appears To Censor Content Critical Of China Says CNN
Not that I am surprised by this. But CNN did a test of TikTok and surprise, TikTok appears to censor content that is critical of China. To get the full context of this report, you can watch it via this link. But here’s the TL:DR. CNN anchor Jake Tapper interviewed TikTok’s head of public policy last year asking if they censored content critical of the Chinese party. “We do not censor content on behalf of any government,” the spokesperson answered.
But this week CNN reviewed data the total number of hashtags on both Instagram and on TikTok for topics that might be embarrassing to the Chinese government — and found stark differences.
On the surface, it seems that TikTok is suppressing these hashtags. Though I will point out that Instagram has been around way longer than TikTok which might account for this. But it does seem like one hell of a coincidence that a Chinese owned social media app has way less content that is critical of the Chinese government.
So why does this matter? TikTok is being looked at by Congress in relation to trying to manipulate how China and their policies are viewed. Which is another way of saying that they are looking at Chinese propaganda. That could lead to TikTok being banned. Thus TikTok really needs to explain this in a way that makes sense and is plausible.
So how about it TikTok?
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This entry was posted on December 3, 2023 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags TikTok. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.