On a Thursday morning this past summer, a group of journalists gathered at the downtown Toronto offices of TikTok Canada. The journalists, who had been invited by the company’s PR team, were led through the office into a gleaming white theatre.
Officially, the purpose of that day’s visit was for a presentation about safety on the app. Tara Wadhwa, the company’s global head of regional product policy, outlined the lengths the company goes “to make sure the time you’re spending on TikTok is time well spent.” Over the course of her 30-minute presentation, she used the word “safe” some 39 times.
But the event was also a branding exercise. It was meant as a gesture of transparency. Journalists were offered tours of the office: a walk past the brick walls, the neon signs, and lounge chairs that looked to be crafted out of foam pool noodles. They were invited to stay for lunch, to help themselves to boxes of salad, platters of charcuterie and pastel-coloured drinks that had been lined up along the bar. The PR team were inviting journalists – and, by extension, the public – a glimpse behind the curtain. See? they seemed to be saying. Nothing to hide.
Since the China-based ByteDance launched TikTok onto the international market in 2017, the company has tried, with mixed success, to cast itself as the kinder counterpart to other social media giants: The gentler younger sibling of the picture-perfect pressures of Instagram, or the yelliness of Facebook and X. They’ve sponsored music and sports events. Spent millions on ads to show off all the hugging and high-fiving and general-good-vibing that takes place on the app. Plastered billboards and bus shelters with the brand’s ubiquitous logo, a white musical note against a black backdrop.
This all because, despite TikTok’s meteoric growth and its more than 1 billion global users, its future in North America is under threat. Since its start, the platform has been plagued with questions around privacy and safety, questions centred around the involvement of the Chinese government, and whether it might be using TikTok as a tool for propaganda or spying. TikTok, like all Chinese-owned companies, is subject to Chinese law, which requires it to share information with the Chinese government, if requested.
And though TikTok has repeatedly said it has not – and would not – share American or Canadian data, the United States government remains deeply skeptical. In April, President Joe Biden issued an ultimatum to TikTok: Break ties with its Chinese owners (forcing ByteDance to sell to American owners), or see the app banned from the country entirely.
And while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hasn’t said whether Canada might follow suit, it seems there’s an appetite for it. In a survey of 2,500 Canadians over the age of 16, some 57 per cent favoured some kind of a TikTok ban, researchers at Toronto Metropolitan University found. Canada has already prohibited the app from federal government worker’s phones. Other institutions, including The Globe and Mail, have put in place their own bans on company-issued phones.
And whether or not you care about TikTok, whether you’re one of many who dismiss it as a wasteland of tween dance videos and brat memes, or whether you’re part of the roughly one-quarter of Canadians (mostly under the age of 40) who regularly use the app, the case of the social media giant is one that affects us all.
The astronomical power and influence now wielded by companies such as Meta and TikTok has left governments grappling with the question of how best to operate alongside these tech giants. What comes next for TikTok, experts say, has the potential to set a new precedent for governments: On how to balance between protecting citizens from the all-knowing, all-taking powers of Big Tech, while also preserving social media as a platform for free speech.
It’s a case, says tech analyst Carmi Levy, with high stakes. “Anyone who cares about freedom and democracy in a digitally driven society should be watching this story very carefully.”
For as long as social media has existed, so too have questions around privacy. In the years after its launch in 2002, MySpace was plagued with concerns about phishing and spyware. MySpace also sold information about its users to advertisers. Meta and Google later perfected the model: Of tracking and harvesting personal data, and selling it for billions of dollars to advertisers on their platforms.
By the time TikTok burst onto the scene in 2017, most social media users had at least a vague understanding of the formula – that they were trading personal data for access to the app. (TikTok evolved out of a 2014 Shanghai-based social media company called Musical.ly, an app for lip-synching videos, and has since become a broad platform for sharing short videos.)
But even by Big Tech standards, critics say, TikTok takes too much.
In March, 2023, the House Energy and Commerce Committee in Washington D.C. called TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to testify in a hearing on U.S. national security.
In her opening remarks, committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican representative from Washington, described TikTok as “a grave threat of foreign influence in American life.” She launched into her questioning, but not without first issuing to Mr. Shou a warning.
“Today, the world is watching,” she said. “ByteDance is watching. The Chinese Communist Party is watching.”
The appearance took place nearly a year before Biden would eventually sign his bill, but offers a glimpse into the U.S. government’s thinking. Under the current version of Biden’s bill, ByteDance has until Jan. 19, 2025, to sell TikTok. ByteDance is challenging the law in court, calling it unconstitutional. And though a range of interested parties, including Microsoft and Oracle, have previously put their hands up as potential buyers, ByteDance is adamant it won’t sell. Of TikTok’s over 1 billion users, some 170 million of them are in the U.S., roughly half of the American population.
The November election, and Biden’s replacement with vice-president Kamala Harris, threatens to upend all of this. Republican presidential nominee (and former president) Donald Trump, who’s on TikTok, has been vocal about wanting to save the app. Ms. Harris and her running mate Tim Walz have since also joined TikTok – and gained huge followings – but she hasn’t said what she’d do if elected.
Until then, the clock keeps ticking.
Throughout the 2023 committee grilling, Mr. Shou outlined the company’s plans to move all U.S. data to U.S. servers (data for Canadians, the company has said, is stored on servers in Singapore, Malaysia, and the U.S.), and its promise to protect Americans from foreign interference.
The privacy concerns about TikTok, he insisted, should be no different than for any other tech company. But that’s the subject of vigorous debate.
“The type of data that TikTok collects is no different than the type of data that’s being collected by other social media platforms,” said Philip Mai, co-director of the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. Like Instagram, TikTok collects user’s location and contacts, he said. Like Instagram, TikTok collects data from likes and shares to create a profile around each user.
But Benjamin Fung, Canada Research Chair in data mining for cybersecurity at McGill University, said that, even by social media standards, TikTok is “greedy.” He pointed to a 2022 report from cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0 that described examples of data that TikTok collects that competitors don’t. For instance, an earlier version, he said, allowed TikTok complete access to our clipboards, where we “copy” and “paste” to on our phones. (TikTok’s privacy policy makes clear that the app does this, and points to reasons why the app might need access to a phone’s clipboard, like to copy and paste into another app). Another earlier version of TikTok, he said, enabled the app to see all of the other apps on a user’s phone. (TikTok has called the report “at best misleading and at worst a severely flawed and biased analysis”).
Prof. Fung also pointed to ByteDance’s own admission that, in 2022, several of its employees had in fact used the app to spy on U.S. journalists reporting on the company.
And it’s not just what the app is collecting, but who has access to it. Who Canada considers an ally (e.g. the U.S.); and who Canada considers a threat (e.g. China).
As the D.C. committee hearing ground on, Ms. Rodgers’ questioning shifted to the question of bias.
Since its start, TikTok’s algorithm has been shrouded in mystery. It’s For You Page, which many users spend most of their time on, pushes content that is hyper-tailored for each user. The algorithm is the company’s secret sauce and raison d’être. It’s what keeps the app so compulsively scrollable.
Log onto the app, and immediately, the algorithm starts feeding you a mix of videos. All the while, it gauges your response. Here‘s a video of a dad doing a belly-flop into the pool. No? A baby eating a Big Mac. Warmer? Here‘s a kitten doing a body wave. Bingo! And then you‘re off. A baby deer getting his ears rubbed. Corgi puppies running around a track. A monkey wearing sunglasses. Next thing you know, your mind feels foggy, and an hour has passed.
But the algorithm, critics argue, also appears to have baked into it certain biases that generally align with the interests of the Chinese government. A study this year by the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University compared content across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube on keywords including “Tiananmen” and “Uyghur.” It found that TikTok’s algorithm, in general, boosts “pro-China propaganda” while also “systematically shouting down sensitive discussions about issues like ethnic genocide and human rights abuses.” (TikTok has disputed this report’s findings, arguing that researchers used flawed methodology).
In a statement, TikTok Canada spokesperson Danielle Morgan pointed to TikTok’s community guidelines and moderators, who pro-actively look to remove misleading, inaccurate or false content. “We continue to evolve our industry-leading safeguards to maintain the integrity of our platform and keep on top of emerging trends, needs and industry-wide challenges, and remain open to engaging productively with government on how we can best keep our community safe.”
The fear, at least from the perspective of North American governments, is that the Chinese government will use TikTok to interfere with, or destabilize local communities. Prof. Fung, who has studied China’s methods of spreading misinformation among diaspora communities in Canada, used the example of WeChat. China has used the so-called “super app” to spread misinformation about candidates in past Canadian elections, he said – attempts to interfere with local elections.
“They have the intention to cultivate an environment that will facilitate the growth of CCP in other countries,” he said.
“And we have to understand they have the capability to do it.”
But the problem is much bigger than TikTok. Or even China. All of Big Tech risks being exploited by overreaching governments. In 2022, for instance, a former Twitter employee in the U.S. was found guilty of spying on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government, by accessing user data of those critical of the Saudi government. And in Egypt and Tunisia, which both have anti-LGBTQ laws, Human Rights Watch has documented how police and government officials have used social media data to target and arrest LGBTQ people.
And the U.S. is just as guilty, said Nikhil Pawha, the editor of MediaNama, a technology news outlet. He pointed to the Reforming Intelligence And Securing America Act (RISAA) in the U.S., which gives the government the authority to compel companies such as Google or Meta to turn over data on foreign citizens in surveillance activities.
And it’s no wonder, he said. Big Tech companies have grown into such powerful forces – more powerful and influential, sometimes, than governments themselves. Meanwhile, those same governments have failed to create safeguards.
“It’s almost as though we have to protect the platforms from the countries from which they originate.”
After Ms. Wadwha wrapped up her talk at the TikTok offices that morning, Joanna Johnson, a TikToker and high-school teacher from Ajax, Ont., took her place at the front of the room to talk about how she first began using the app at the height of the pandemic. She now has over 2.9 million followers.
After posting her first few videos, she said, she quickly saw how the platform could help her connect with students, and educate larger audiences on a broad range of issues. For instance, Ms. Johnson, who is a lesbian, regularly uses her account to speak out against homophobia.
“Nine times out of ten, they’re showing me cat videos,” she said of her students. “But when they send me a video on the Israel-Palestine conflict? Guess what? Now we can have a discussion.”
A ban on TikTok, she said, would mean shutting the door on that conversation. “I’m missing the opportunity to make the kids feel empowered, and to be able to protect themselves.”
It’s a scenario Mr. Pahwa, the MediaNama editor, has seen play out himself.
Four years ago, in June, 2020, an e-mail landed in his inbox from the government of India (where he lives and works), informing him that, as of the next day, a list of 59 apps – all of them with ties to China, including TikTok – would be banned.
The Indian government cited security concerns as the reason, but it was the clear the decision was also political. China and India have long held hostilities toward one another, and in the months leading up to the announcement, there had been a series of skirmishes along their shared border.
(Immediately following the TikTok ban, a number of copycat apps created by Indian founders came on the scene. But then Meta and Google launched Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. “The real winners” of the ban, said Mr. Pahwa, “have been Instagram and YouTube.”)
And the lasting impact is that India’s citizens have found themselves suddenly cut off from a part of a global conversation. It’s a feeling of disconnect that anyone who’s not on TikTok can likely relate to: Of only occasionally catching glimpses of TikTok memes or trends when they surface on other media.
“It’s all out of context for us,” he said.
A ban on one app, added Mr. Levy, the tech analyst, opens the door to censorship of any of the millions of other apps on the Internet, Chinese or otherwise.
“If you mentioned banning books to anyone, they would recoil in horror. They’d protest in front of libraries,” he said.
That the app is widely viewed as a place for young people – that is, those least likely to vote – means that decision-makers feel emboldened to act with impunity, Mr. Levy said.
“It would be a very different conversation if a government proposed a ban on Facebook,” said Mr. Levy.
It’s an argument TikTok’s lawyers have made recently, in their court challenge against Biden’s bill. A ban, TikTok’s lawyers argued just last month, would represent a violation of the First Amendment. They likened the app to a foreign-owned news outlet, like Politico or Fortune.
But the free speech argument doesn’t translate perfectly. For one thing, book publishers aren’t probing us for personal data and then monetizing it. For another, the tech giants themselves have resisted the argument.
In case after case, Meta, Google, and TikTok have argued that their businesses are “platforms” and not “publishers.” They’ve done so to avoid responsibility and liability for the content that appears on their platforms. It’s an argument TikTok’s lawyers made recently in court, against the family of a 10-year-old girl who died after asphyxiating herself as a part of a TikTok “blackout challenge.” After her family sued TikTok, the app’s lawyers argued that the company is simply a platform carrying third-party content. (This despite TikTok’s First Amendment arguments in their separate case against the U.S. government).
Although those who would ban TikTok talk about protecting citizens from foreign governments' surveillance, there are other kinds of safety to consider. Individual safety is important: Safety from being preyed upon, bullied, or harassed online. Safety from being unknowingly tracked and targeted for advertisements or deliberate misinformation.
Even without a ban, experts say there are numerous examples of stronger regulations, and guardrails that could better protect everyone.
The EU, for instance, has the General Data Protection Regulation, which requires companies to have informed consent before collecting user data. Just last year, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined Meta €390-million (543-million) for failing to explicitly ask users for permission before collecting data for ads.
Last month, Meta announced new built-in privacy measures for teenagers. TikTok has automatic daily screen time limits for those under 18, and limits on who can interact with accounts belonging to those under 16.
And the approach taken recently by the Toronto District School Board, too, might offer some guidelines. While phones are generally not allowed during class, teachers are given latitude to decide when and if it’s appropriate to exempt – if they’re using a TikTok video, for example, to lead a class discussion.
But none of this can happen if the tech companies don’t engage in a straightforward way. Each time governments have tried to place regulations, even definitions, around them, they’ve contorted, shape-shifted – obfuscated.
The TikTok presentation that morning lasted almost two hours. The room where the journalists were seated was plastered with the company’s ubiquitous white music note on a black background. The logo – printed on the screen, on banners, and on fuchsia and cyan pillows – is itself a trick of the eye. The edges of the note are ringed with pink and blue, to create the illusion of movement. It’s intentionally blurry.
As the event wound down, Ms. Johnson sat at the front of the room, wrapping up her thoughts. With platforms like TikTok, she said, there’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle. The best we can do is to empower ourselves, and to learn to think critically.
She listed off the questions she tells her students to ask when they’re using the app. “What are they trying to explain? To share? To influence?” she asked.
They were questions that were fitting for the event – fitting, in fact, for all of us who use social media each and every single day.
“Who created this?” she asked. “And why?”