TikTok debate abounds in hypocrisy

In information warfare, no hypocrisy is too hypocritical.

A few weeks ago the US Congress passed legislation to force the separation of the popular social media app TikTok from its Chinese parent company Bytedance, if it wishes to continue to operate in the US, on national security concerns that the Chinese Communist Party can access Tiktok’s user data, manipulate its content algorithm and exert influence on the US public.

In response, the spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) sent this post on X (formerly known as Twitter):

“The US styles itself as a country with a free market and freedom of speech, but it even abuses state power to go after a certain company. This is “supremely ironic”.”

“Ironic” is indeed a good description of the situation: the First Amendment of the US Constitution protects Americans’ right to free speech, but the country’s political class is terrified of the impact of the short video platform used mostly by teenagers to express themselves; President Biden indicates he will sign the bill into law if the Senate approves it, only a month after his own campaign team opens an account on TikTok to reach out to young voters; and worse still, Trump, the ex-president and presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, despite issuing an executive order four year ago banning TikTok, now opposed the bill, with the excuse that it will benefit Facebook, “the true enemy of the people” in his words, while the real reason for the about-face may be that one of his Republican billionaire donor, Jeff Yass, also holds a significant share of Bytedance. 

An American President openly supporting a Chinese company against its American competitor? That is indeed an America First!

But the real “supremely ironic” side of the debate is the Chinese, whose temper tantrum on the US TikTok ban is a hilarious collection of chutzpah with a supreme lack of self-awareness.

For a start, many readers perhaps don’t realize that TikTok is actually already banned in China. 

TikTok was launched in 2017 by Bytedance as the international version of Douyin, a successful Chinese video sharing platform created a year earlier, necessitated by the stringent censorship regulations from the Chinese government. For Bytedance to cater to the global market, the only practical solution was to separate the two apps. As TikTok’s corporate structure is registered in the Cayman Islands and based in Singapore and Los Angeles, its international user generated contents as a matter of law are not subject to Chinese government moderation and deemed unsuitable for consumption by the Chinese people. As a result, it isn’t available on Chinese app stores and its website is blocked by China’s government imposed firewall.

So Beijing is condemning the potential US move to restrict Americans’ access to TikTok even though it has prohibited the average Chinese from using the same app.

Secondly, for over a decade China has been banning nearly all popular US social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and Whatsapp, as well as websites such as Google, Wikipedia, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and even Australia’s own ABC. The MFA spokesperson has to rely on a state approved VPN, available only to government officials and state media operatives, to tweet their displeasure at the US plan to ban TikTok.

The MFA insists that the difference is TikTok complies with US laws while US tech companies don’t observe China's. This may be technically correct but raises the question of why its own spokesperson is using social media services deemed unlawful in China, and ignores the reality of China as a Marxist-Leninist authoritarian state which designates any and all activities questioning the Communist Party leadership as “harmful to national security” and illegal. 

As an example, type in the key word “1989 Tiananmen” on Chinese search engine or social media and you will find no texts, no photos, no videos, nothing relating to the student protest which ended in bloody crackdown by the People’s Liberation Army, except for a few officially approved paragraphs designating as “counter-revolutionary riot”. Chinese online translation apps even refuse to work with any text containing the name of Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. In this context, it is virtually impossible for US platforms to function properly in China (the only US based social media app that was allowed in China, Linkedin, quit the market after a few years citing operation obstacles caused by Beijing’s censorship).

The legal hurdles faced by the US in its effort to regulate a Chinese app present a stark contrast in the rule of law to China’s ease in a blanket ban of US platforms. 

Trump’s executive order was suspended by a Federal Court injunction citing constitutional concerns. The current House bill will still need to be negotiated through the Senate and even if it becomes law, will likely be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court with an uncertain outcome.

Meanwhile in China to this day there is no published list of banned foreign websites nor were any explanations given or public consultation undertaken. Last week TikTok users in the US had to click through a pop up window pleading with them to call their members of Congress to protest. Whereas any website in China that organizes such mass action to intervene with parliamentary deliberation will be shut down immediately for subversion. 

As the Chinese diplomats and propaganda workers gleefully point to the First Amendment in their mocking of the US TikTok decision, none of them pause for a moment to reflect on Article 35 of their own Constitution: Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration.

There is an ancient Chinese saying: in war, no deceit is too deceitful. To which I might add: in information warfare, no hypocrisy is too hypocritical.