TikTok's rapid rise to become teenagers' favorite social media app is not unprecedented. Before it, youngsters were flocking by millions to Snapchat; and before that, to Instagram. And before Instagram, there were others, beginning of course with Facebook.
The US, China and Europe
All these hugely popular applications had started in the US and were owned by American companies.
What is unprecedented in TikTok's case is that, for the first time, almost a billion people, including significant amounts of "Westerners" are active on a platform owned by a Chinese company.
Europe used to be the world's economically dominant pole in the XIXth century and, despite the devastation wrought by two terrible conflagrations, had managed to remarkably recover its footing in the three decades following the Second World War.
Yet since the turn of the XXIth century, its standing in the corporate world began to deteriorate markedly and a clear, continuous decline became impossible to deny.
To an outside observer, Europe's response to this phenomenon, in both intellectual and political circles, appeared muddled at best. A cacophony of takes coming from the four corners of the continent included calls to reproduce the Silicon Valley conditions in this or that region (it never worked), but also public shrugs: Europe still has a lot of innovation and start-up formation, the answer went; accordingly, the fact that European startups tend to move their HQs to the US beyond a certain stage on their growth path does not matter. The US is a close ally and, if it wasn't for geography, distinguishing between it and "Europe" was only an old reflex, irrelevant in the era of globalization.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq by a "coalition" led by the US made apparent the first cracks in the "Western" construct: France and Germany decided to stay aside. What looked back then like a superficial crack got deeper as Barack Obama announced a "pivot to Asia" and even more so during the fateful 2016 when the UK voted for "Brexit" and the US elected Donald Trump as its president.
This was when European politicians started talking about "strategic autonomy". The moment when, accordingly, the place where innovation not only happened but also matured into "one billion customers" companies began to seem relevant.
Clear and present danger
What was, back then, just an intellectual argument, took concrete shape these last months. For the first time, European governments had reasons to believe that a "systemic rival" and "strategic competitor", China, could get hold of critical data thanks to its power over a "platform" application, TikTok.
While TikTok is nominally headquartered in Singapore, it is uncontested that the Chinese government is able to exercise effective control over it. For the first time, hosting (or just being able to effectively control) one of these "wonder applications" that began as a scrappy start-up - of the sort Europe creates at a healthy pace - and proceeded to grow into a global platform with hundreds of millions of users - of the sort only the US managed to create previously - conferred on the "host" (or, more appropriately, controlling) government a dangerous amount of power!
Being able to grow innovative start-ups into global platforms matters!
After the European Commission, the European Parliament too has requested its staff to delete TikTok from their private phones if those phones are also used for work. That is a relevant injunction because of the recent spread of the "BYOD" policy. For several years, EU Commission and EU Parliament staff had been encouraged to use their personal smartphones for work related purposes (including for 3-factor authentication). By requesting their staff to uninstall an application from their personal devices, weren't the EU institutions taking disproportionate measures encroaching on the private life of its employees? Especially since no solid evidence has been presented in support of the expressed fears of cyberespionnage.
One could conclude that "even not substantiated and potentially unfounded public security concerns trump respect for the private life" in the EU. But that would be a distraction. All this would not have mattered if TikTok had been a European company (or even an US one).
Yet Europe has consistently refused to do what it takes in order to ensure that at least some of the most innovative applications not only emerge but also stay in Europe as they become bigger and bigger to the point of becoming global platforms.
Mathematics eats ideology for breakfast
International trade has much in common with a mathematical game of "repeated prisoner dilemma". It has been proven that whether "implementing protectionist measures" ("defecting" in prisoner's dilemma terms) or "trading freely" ("cooperating") is the better strategy, depends on how the other actor behaves. When both "players" (Europe and the US) "cooperate", the best aggregate result is achieved. Yet if one player (US) defects and "implements protectionist measures", he ends better off than if he had cooperated. The motivation for a player not to defect thus comes from the "threat of retaliation" - when the game is repeated, if the other player (Europe) plays "tit for tat" and "defects" too, then the US loses more than if it had cooperated consistently.
If on the other hand the second player (Europe) refuses on principle to retaliate and continues to play "cooperate" (to trade freely) despite the obvious "defection" of the US, then the latter has absolutely no incentive to "cooperate" and is best served by continuously playing "defect" (protectionism). This is precisely what we've seen with the brazenly protectionist "Inflation Reduction Act" and the muted response of the Biden administration to the feeble protests of the Europeans.
"Protectionist measures" in the classical sense leads to think of the classical commerce in goods. In the particular context of innovative tech platforms, the equivalent of "implementing protectionist measures" is "regulating later / more lightly / not at all"
The real lesson of the TikTok thus is much bigger: whether responding to protectionist (or deregulatory measures) with similar measures or staying true to principled free trade (or adding regulatory burdens) is not a matter of political choice and principles, but of mathematics and hard-headed calculation.
"Wishing mathematics away" is not a responsible attitude when deciding for 400 million Europeans. Relying on ideology and principles, rather than on cold, hard maths is a loser's game.
I agree with you and by the way don't think that apps like Skype, software like Mircsosoft Teams or operatings systems like Microsoft Windows and many others are trustworthier than Tik Tok.
In general I think every individual should decide themselves which risk they are ready to accept which data they are ready to share and which level of privacy they need.
Social Media sites like Tik Tok or Facebook don't guarantee enough privacy and data protection but at least evry user can decide themselves which data to share and if to use these sites at all. However, if the state wants any of my data, there is no way to hide it. That means in my eyes the states and governments themselves threaten harder to invade my privacy than any social network could ever do.
(I am aware that the situation of politicians who use their own devices for work is a somewhat special case.)
About Microsoft Teams it is (often) another thing, as many companies use this for meetings and so you need to use this app to work.
Which doesn't make it better: who even uses such an insecure program for work should not worry too much about Tik Tok. :-)
The University of the Sparland is also using Microsoft Office 365 and Teams wherever possible: what a terrible decision.
However, it might be forbidden in schools soon (I am not sure about the final decision).
I also use it at my work and it is not my decision.
The whole company was shifted from Lotus Notes to MS Office.
I think technology in the 21st Century moving into the 22nd century will go far beyond any government control, despite how they try now to tackle it with silly laws.
At a time in Nigeria, Twitter was banned, Nigerians how ever used VPN to continue in their love for the digital space (even me not excluded)
After several months, it was clear that the only one losing from the ban was the Nigeria economy because they banned a great source of revenue from businesses.
TikTok is quite similar, and I'm sure a greater than TikTok is on its way, not produced by the Europeans and might be widely used by them.
Despite whatever tactics the government might try to use, I'm certain it won't last as they will lose more from playing control Lord.
Thanks for your opinion, @kilvnrex . Resisting government censorship is in the DNA of bitcoin and, to a certain extent, many of its intellectual progeny, including Hive. With TikTok, the situation is muddled because of the Chinese government interference.
Very true. Man's quest for power is just alarming, but then you can always trust an opposition; and in this matter, I don't see any government winning the opposition.
IMO it is good to ban apps like tiktok from business or government phones.
If somebody want use it than he should IMO use his phone and not a phone he got to work with.
But because governments want to save money they encourage their stuff to use their private phones for work and then, after it, try to forbid certain apps. :)
By the way: what do you mean with "apps like Tik Tok"? Apps like Skype or Facebook, too?
yes, f.e. in my company it is also forbidden to install WhatsAPP on your business phone.
I am not sure about facebook and Skype but I guess also.
I mean it is not forbidden to have it at your private phone.
But that's precisely the issue here: they forbid it ON YOUR PRIVATE PHONE!
It's a tad more complicated than that. First govt. encourage employees to use their own private phone for govt work (BYOD). THEN they come and say: "Oh! If you use your private phone for work, you have to erase TikTok from your private phone"
ok this is not correct, if you need a phone for your work than the company (or government) should give you one.
Before facebook their was the daddy of them all MySpace.
A truly democratic SocM site that let you share pics and the music you were listening to.
Nothing has matched it yet.
Not even Friends ReUnited, which broke up so many marriages by rekindling school age romances.
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Yes some of the country ban Tiktalk but the fact remains that they still have conspiracy over the arm of government of different nation over the hosting nation , I can till tell you that Tiktalk have come to stay as we have in other social media, no leave no transfer, is now a fundamental social body all over the world