The Chinese social media app TikTok has been under fire recently. The Australian government announced a ban of the app on government-owned devices earlier this month. The ban has been implemented at a government level in other western countries including the US, the UK, New Zealand, Canada and France.
On Monday, TikTok Australia published a self-described factcheck, titled The Truth About TikTok: Separating Fact from Fiction, on TikTok’s site and on LinkedIn.
However, the report, Myth vs fact, did not tell the full story. We decided to take a close look at some of the company’s claims.
On Chinese ownership
The factcheck labels it a “myth” that “TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Ltd, is Chinese owned”.
In an attempt to downplay Chinese ownership, it says roughly 60% of its parent company, ByteDance, is owned by global institutional investors. The remainder is made up of employees across the globe (20%), as well as the company’s founder (20%), who TikTok describes as “a private individual and not part of any state or government entity”.
But this confirms that at least 20% and likely much more of the company is, in fact, Chinese-owned. A submission to Australia’s parliamentary inquiry on foreign influence through social media claimed that the company’s founder, Zhang Yiming, “has links to provincial united front organisations in Fujian”. The CCP’s united front is a Chinese government organisation that works to advance the party’s interests – particularly abroad. TikTok has dismissed the research paper that formed the basis of the submission.
On being headquartered in China
The factcheck also labelled it a “myth” that “TikTok and ByteDance are headquartered in China”, saying “ByteDance does not have a single global headquarters”.
ByteDance is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, but in the company’s appeal against the US official divestment order in 2020, ByteDance repeatedly described itself as a “Chinese-headquartered” company.
The ‘manipulation’ of content
TikTok claims it does not “[manipulate] content in a way that benefits the Chinese government or harms Australian interests”.
The factcheck says the company “does not permit any government to influence or change its recommendation model” and that users can “find a variety of content and views expressed about certain political issues or events, including those which are critical of the Chinese government”.
It is difficult to verify these claims because the TikTok algorithm that governs what users see on their “For You” page is secret.
After the TikTok chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, appeared before US Congress earlier this year some users reported they began seeing pro-Chew videos in their feed, but TikTok denied the suggestion it was deliberating serving users pro-TikTok content and others said it was more likely a result of the app’s algorithm responding to users having pro-TikTok feelings.
On censorship
The company claimed it does not censor “TikTok content on behalf of the CCP or Chinese government”. But leaked moderator documents obtained in 2019 by the Guardian revealed TikTok had instructed its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong. TikTok argued at the time that the documents were outdated.
National intelligence law
TikTok labelled it a “myth” that “under its 2017 National Intelligence law, the Chinese government can compel ByteDance to share Australian TikTok user data”.
TikTok claims that Australian TikTok user data is stored in Singapore, Malaysia and the US, and is “subject to local laws”, arguing this would protect the China law being applied outside China.
However, a Department of Homeland Security report argues the law can be applied to data held domestically in China or abroad.
Data collection
At least one of the claims in TikTok’s factcheck is well supported by the available evidence: that the app itself is “not unique in the amount of information it collects”. Social media companies of all stripes collect and share user data, a practice they defend as typical across the industry.
As Guardian Australia reported last week, the ban on government employees downloading the TikTok app to their work devices may be rendered ineffective due to these data-sharing practices.
