Photo courtesy of Eyestetix Studio on Unsplash

I love social media. There’s a sense of euphoria from post-validation that just feels good. Social media has also evolved past memes into also a medium for art and content creation. Tidbits of information and content constantly break boundaries in creativity and thought. Seeing people getting more involved in political discussions made social media feel like a local coffee shop. This doesn’t exclude TikTok either, most of my favorite content has come from the app.
   Initially, I liked posting on TikTok, using features like transitions to add intrigue to my videos. I liked knowing that sometimes other people felt the same way; it felt like a globally connected sense of community. 

I didn’t start disliking TikTok overnight. It was more like a gradual realization that beneath the surface of the app, it was a little rotted inside. There’s something scary about unspoken intentions.

Unease with social media isn’t uncommon. After the National Security Agency (NSA) program PRISM was exposed in 2012, data safety and security skyrocketed to the forefront of political discussion. For those unfamiliar, the program allowed the NSA to track our data and communications from companies like Facebook, Apple and Google. 

Additionally, the spread of misinformation can be prevalent on social media, as was the case during the lead-up to the 2016 election. “Fake news” became a household phrase regardless of if it was being hurled at the left or the right. And it was undeniably true: In 2017 Mark Zuckerberg admitted that 126 million Americans were exposed to Russian-backed politically-oriented fake news stories. 

To put that into a little context, the U.S. Election Project found that only 139 million Americans voted in the 2016 elections. It doesn’t matter whether they voted based on the story they saw. When an individual sees content, they internalize the information subconsciously. In 2021, The Journal of Consumer Marketing found that “people prefer to receive and share relevant content, even if it is fake.”

TikTok has been the latest social media platform in the hot seat, with CEO Shou Zi Chew appearing in front of Congress just last month. The U.S. government itself banned TikTok on government devices earlier this March, citing cybersecurity and data privacy fears. Over 30 other countries have imposed bans on TikTok usage as well. This time, the discussion was concerning TikTok’s parent company ByteDance and its relationship with the Chinese Communist Party for data usage. 

A congressional hearing tends to be a long arduous process that sometimes spans days; it’s quite often a chess match of words and logical circles. The entire point is to better understand a topic of concern. In this case, it was TikTok’s relationship with the Chinese government and the spread of misinformation.

Now, as we saw with Facebook, misinformation is so common on social media that it’s not fair to frame TikTok as the sole contributor. In my opinion, the argument for banning TikTok on grounds of misinformation is a moot point. At that point shouldn’t we ban other social media too? What concerns me is how our data is used through TikTok by a foreign government. 

The majority of social media Americans use is American owned. Facebook is incorporated in the United States. Twitter is incorporated in the United States. Reddit is incorporated in the United States. TikTok is not, but 150 million Americans use the app. We don’t know how foreign entities choose to use our data.

Last December, ByteDance announced that they had fired four employees for using TikTok data to track down an anonymous source from BuzzFeed and The Financial Times. Isn’t that at least a little concerning?

When I signed up for TikTok, I agreed to its privacy settings. I didn’t know, so I didn’t care. I said TikTok had permission to track my eye movement, location and search history. I allowed TikTok to tailor videos to my interests and recommend videos on topics I like. The issue was, I never really clarified how my information gets used. I didn’t realize that misinformation could be targeted at me, or that it could influence my decisions. 

Do you know the feeling when you believe someone as they lie to your face? Afterward, it feels kind of gross because you fell for it. I don’t like feeling used.