Canada's TikTok crackdown is a product of a politically biased double standard and ignores a larger X-shaped threat
On the Nov. 6, 2024, the Government of Canada ordered TikTok to wind-down its operations in Canada. François-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science and industry, explained in a statement that the decision was based on the findings of a national security inquiry into the app and business.
While the order does not limit Canadians' ability to watch or post videos on TikTok, students should be alert to this potential threat to their access to information.
Canadian creators interviewed by CBC Radio-Canada, as well as Toronto Metropolitan University expert, Phillip Mai, are all concerned about the potential of a future TikTok ban.
Mai explicitly explicitly drew the connection between TikTok and young people, suggesting that the Canadian government might slowly be working its way towards a complete ban, but is holding off for fear of a backlash from young people so close to an election.
Young people would be right to be upset if the government took such drastic actions. The government’s cited concern over national security, as well as stakeholder’s concerns over the ability of TikTok to control the information environment it enables, are in many cases nothing but very thinly-veiled anti-Chinese prejudice.
Expert's national security fears centre on TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, being forced to surrender user data to the Chinese government. Similar sets of Canadian’s personal data are collected by Meta, X (formerly Twitter) and other websites, all with the intent to sell well-targeted ads to advertisers.
Why is it so much more controversial for TikTok to generate a data profile to sell people things than it is for Instagram? All of this information is vulnerable to various forms of nefarious access, so a singular focus on TikTok is politically biased.
Since Elon Musk took over the platform [X, formerly Twitter], he has used it as a personal political weapon; most evidently during the recent US presidential campaign, where algorithmic changes after his Trump endorsement helped to boost right-wing users and posts disproportionately.
X — formerly known as Twitter — represents a much more pressing risk for political interference. Since Elon Musk took over the platform, he has used it as a personal political weapon; most evidently during the recent US presidential campaign, where algorithmic changes after his Trump endorsement helped to boost right-wing users and posts disproportionately.
This is compounded by intentional algorithmic manipulation that promotes Musk’s own tweets to nearly all X users. He used this self-promotion to destructive effect when, in August, he promoted and endorsed then ongoing violent xenophobic riots in the United Kingdom. His tweets were seen by thousands, and amplified the social media firestorm that continued to fuel the riots for a week.
Canadian youth are the most likely age demographic to consume news on TikTok, as well as on social media at large. Because of this, students are particularly vulnerable to the rapid changes in the social media landscape.
Our information feeds are not apolitical, as demonstrated by X and by recent attempts in the US to ban TikTok. Multiple Republican lawmakers close to the project of the still pending ban repeatedly stated that the presence of pro-Palestinian content on TikTok was among their reasons for wanting the app banned, particularly for it’s potential effects on young people’s media habits.
Our information feeds are not apolitical, as demonstrated by X (formerly Twitter) and by recent attempts in the US to ban TikTok.
Every platform has it's own political and economic concerns that get in the way of their being a neutral source of information. From platforms like X disproportionately promoting right-wing content, to Meta’s ban on Canadian news, or the TikTok-speak developed by creators to avoid nebulous censorship - none of these platforms are perfect and none of them should be completely trusted to inform us.
While student's should be concerned about the government's worrying crackdown on TikTok, we can't be uncritical about the platform, or any platform. While social media remains an important tool for us in consuming news and information, we have to approach this consumption critically and recognize how each platform impacts our understanding of the world.
By Anonymous, Contributor
This article has been edited as of Jan. 19, 2020
A previously published version of this article stated, "Contrary to what many people in the West may believe, state-run news stories about China, although heavily censored, are in fact quite accurate when they do get published." This has been corrected to, "Contrary to what many people in the West may believe, the fact that state-run news stories about China are heavily censored does not make them factually inaccurate."
The correction has been made to reflect the final submission of this piece published in print on Jan. 9.
The CSSA-gate at McMaster has triggered an interesting online debate between members of the Chinese community at McMaster and the rest of campus. Many non-Chinese students mistakenly believe that the Chinese students who questioned the procedures and implications of the McMaster Students Union’s decision are brainwashed as their life before coming to Canada was behind China’s “Great Firewall”. Some of them seem to perceive such Chinese students to be victims of an absolute information barrier, which supposedly leaves them no choice but to accept the government’s propaganda. Therefore, it seems righteous to “enlighten” those Chinese students with patronizing questions or bombardment of pictures of historical incidents like the Tiananmen Square Protest. These gestures, although they may have good intentions, are pretty amusing to this new generation of Chinese students who were born and raised in China, including me. Let me explain why.
First, Chinese people have access to the largest ever-increasing reservoir of information and news on China — in Chinese. Such information not only comes from state-owned media channels, but also non-official channels, social media platforms, online chatting groups and other online platforms. Contrary to what many people in the West may believe, the fact that state-run news stories about China are heavily censored does not make them factually inaccurate. Due to the rise of social media platforms as well as the anti-corruption campaign, it has become increasingly difficult and costly for government officials to cover up catastrophic or controversial stories. Therefore, most people, if curious enough, can get a pretty good grasp of what is going on simply by combining information from state media and other channels.
Second, while China’s “Great Firewall” does block a few websites, such as Google and Facebook, it does not block all Western media. In fact, Chinese people have access to a majority of Western media channels through state and non-state owned media. Some include the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, the Economist, CBC, The Globe and Mail and CNN. Selected news coverage on China and international affairs are translated into Chinese from tens of languages. In any country in the world, a larger blockade to absorbing foreign information is usually the barrier of a foreign language rather than the “Great Firewall”. Therefore, translated news stories offer a very informative picture of the world to the Chinese people.
Lastly, the “Great Firewall” is not an absolute blockade of information, despite the websites that are blocked by censorship. For those who want to obtain unfiltered information, they can get around the firewall through a VPN proxy to gain access to those blocked websites. Such VPN services are usually not blocked by the government.
You may argue that China’s censorship of information is still controlling people’s minds but — and this may come as a surprise to many — contrary to the idea that the Chinese are “brainwashed”, Chinese people are usually hyper mindful of the fact that the government dominates and controls information inflows. Hence, they do not take media at face value and are usually super critical of it. This is particularly true for educated Chinese students on McMaster University’s campus. They generally obtain information, compare multiple sources and do some further research before they come to their own conclusion.
In this new era of fake news in the Western media, more and more Canadians are trying hard to seek the truth and stay critical of Fox News, CNN, the National Inquirer, and tabloid sources that may provide dis-information, mis-information and mal-information. In order to be engaged citizens of the world, we all have to be investigative journalists to some degree to search for stories from different sides. However, in China, people have been carrying out such an independent investigation on controversial events for decades because of the apparent censorship.
Sadly, Chinese students were judged based on two assumptions: that the Chinese students are absolutely “brainwashed,” and China is an evil country. As a result, the Chinese students who questioned the treatment of Mac Chinese Students and Scholars Association by the MSU were mocked as if these students can’t think critically because they are Chinese. Therefore, despite the fact that we’re in Canada, Chinese students’ voices can be immediately dismissed, our rights can be compromised and our character can be attacked based on these assumptions.
This article is not arguing that Canadian students are “brainwashed” by all the fake news about China or that you shouldn’t believe anything Western media says about China. Rather, its purpose is to serve as a gentle reminder that biases against China and Chinese students can exist on campus. In this increasingly divided world, keeping a cool head and sticking to the facts are valuable qualities that make us Canadians truly multicultural and inclusive.
It takes some effort to do your own research, fact checking and comparing different sources of information, but we can’t afford to be lazy. It might not be that difficult to carry out a Google search on different sides of stories about the recent happenings about Xinjiang, Hong Kong or Mac CSSA. It might not be that difficult to truly listen and respect opinions from the Chinese students’ side as equals. If some members of our community, within the Student Representative Assembly or outside of the SRA, can truly reflect what happened in the MAC CSSA-gate instead of getting defensive and maintaining their anti-discrimination responsibilities merely as lip services, it might not be that difficult to correct the mistakes made. At least I wish.
