Look, I do know that many individuals are wedded to TikTok, each personally and professionally, and that the controversy round whether or not it ought to be banned within the U.S. is usually an emotional one, versus straight logic-based.

However based mostly on the broader proof that we now have round Chinese language-based affect operations, there does appear to be some trigger to at the very least examine TikTok for its potential connection to the identical sources which are perpetuating these very actions.

Late final week, for instance, Microsoft launched its newest menace evaluation replace, by which it warned that Chinese language-based teams are searching for to affect voters in different nations via coordinated social media exercise.

As per Microsoft:

“Misleading social media accounts by Chinese language Communist Get together (CCP)-affiliated actors have began to pose contentious questions on controversial U.S. home points to higher perceive the important thing points that divide U.S. voters. This might be to assemble intelligence and precision on key voting demographics forward of the U.S. presidential election.”

Microsoft shared these examples, amongst others, to focus on how these pretend accounts are getting used to get a way of U.S. voter sentiment on sure points that China is especially all in favour of.

Certainly, in line with Microsoft’s evaluation, these teams have been more and more focusing on matters associated to China’s exercise within the South China Sea, Taiwan, and the U.S. protection industrial base.

Theoretically, these teams might then look to make use of these accounts as a vector to affect U.S. voters, to be able to drive the result that may finest align with China’s pursuits.

Microsoft additional notes that there’s been an elevated use of Chinese language AI-generated content material in current months:

“[These posts attempt] to affect and sow division within the U.S. and elsewhere on a spread of matters together with: the practice derailment in Kentucky in November 2023, the Maui wildfires in August 2023, the disposal of Japanese nuclear wastewater, drug use within the U.S. in addition to immigration insurance policies and racial tensions within the nation.”

The intention is to make use of these profiles and apps to affect voter sentiment. And based mostly on this, you would need to additionally assume {that a} Chinese language-owned app, into which these teams have considerably extra perception and entry, can be an much more vulnerable goal for a similar sorts of actions.

And TikTok does certainly have affect, as TikTok itself has inadvertently amplified via its personal efforts to oppose the newest ban speak.

This message, encouraging U.S. TikTok customers to foyer their native Senator on its behalf, present the direct affect that the app can have on person exercise, and with 150 million U.S. customers, that’s a giant viewers to assist unfold its message.

And once you additionally think about that these similar China-based affect operations have been detected on just about each different social app, it appears totally logical that TikTok itself might pose a threat, as we head into the election race.

Does that imply that TikTok ought to be banned? I don’t know, and also you don’t know both.

At current, the U.S. Senators who’ll be tasked with voting on a TikTok ban within the U.S. are being briefed by numerous safety businesses, with intel that we, the general public, can’t entry.

So perhaps they’re being given extra proof than we all know, or perhaps it’s all the identical stuff, however once more, on stability, based mostly on the examples of Chinese language meddling that we’re conscious of on social apps, it looks like it is a legitimate query, as a minimum.

On this sense, it’s not about stealing knowledge, which looks like a little bit of crimson herring within the broader debate. The counter-argument is that Meta can be stealing person knowledge, and utilizing it for potential nefarious means, however the precise concern is about affect, and the potential to sway opinions by content material displayed within the app.

I’d hazard a guess that that is the way more vital aspect of consideration. And whereas some would additionally argue that Meta, and different U.S.-based social apps, have additionally sought to affect voter opinions at completely different occasions via their very own content material insurance policies, the purpose is that: a) These are U.S. corporations, not a possible international adversary searching for to weight the result of their favor, and b) All of those corporations have been hauled earlier than Congress to reply for such, and have confronted harder laws, and fines, in consequence.

Simply as TikTok is now dealing with, with the proposed laws not successfully searching for to ban the app, however to drive it into definitively clear separation from its Chinese language possession.

Emotion apart, there may be seemingly a case to be made right here. Whether or not you want TikTok or not.