Will Canada ban TikTok, too?

Jordan: If you spend a lot of time on social media or even just a little bit of time, you will learn pretty quickly that the algorithms know you pretty well and one of them in particular might know you better than you know yourself, at least in terms of what you’ll stop to watch. And it’s that one that happens to be owned by a Chinese company that has a solid percentage of the world, a little concerned right now.

Clip 1: Now the US Senate has overwhelmingly passed a bill ordering TikToks Chinese owners to sell the app within months or see it banned in the United States.

Jordan: It’s worth noting here that the United States isn’t the first huge country to ban the app. India actually did it years ago, despite even then having nearly 200 million TikTok users among its population. The US government praised that decision then and has now followed through with its own attempt to force TikToks owners to sell or face a ban. Canada meanwhile hasn’t yet written any bills that would do the same, but it has become clear lately that our government shares the security concerns that led to that US ban. So will we follow suit? What exactly are those security concerns and what do Canadians think about the government deciding which apps they can use? I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Anja Karadeglija is a reporter and editor with The Canadian Press based in Ottawa, who recently wrote on the potential US ban on TikTok and the potential, I guess, Anja, that it could maybe happen here.

Anja Karadeglija: Yes, theoretically sort of

Jordan: Theoretically sort of. Alright. For those who are not hip with the youths these days, you got to explain first what TikTok is. I think most people know what it is, but what’s its kind of unique appeal compared to other social media platforms?

Anja Karadeglija: So it’s a short video app and obviously there’s a lot of short video apps out there, but really its main attraction is that it has an especially addictive algorithm. So if you think about social media or streaming platforms that you might use Spotify or Facebook or YouTube and how good they are at recommending videos that keep you watching, and TikTok is kind of even better at that. So it has this combination where you can kind of endlessly scroll and its algorithms are so good that they are just absolutely keeping you engaged and there’s also a huge range of from around the world, and you get things you think you might like, but also things you wouldn’t realize that you might like and it’s very good at just keeping you on there. So it has a lot of content from everyday people too, which is interesting. So it can just be a wide range. I can give you an example if you like. So I mean, I’m probably going to out myself here as to what’s on my TikTok, but you get on there and it can really swing. It can be videos about politics, videos of people doing their makeup to soup recipes, and then it swings to something really random that you never would’ve looked up, like carpet cleaning videos or videos of a seal for New Zealand that likes to hang out in town to swinging back to in-depth social analysis about the state of feminism in our society.

Jordan: I ended up going down this TikTok rabbit hole and now I see very often videos by people who keep raccoons as pets.

Anja Karadeglija: Okay. See, I wouldn’t have thought of that if it popped up on my for you page. I would absolutely keep watching.

Jordan: Exactly. Okay, so that’s the appeal of TikTok. Let’s talk about the concerns around it. Who owns it and what are governments worried about here?

Anja Karadeglija: So it’s a wholly owned subsidiary of a Chinese technology company called ByteDance Limited, and the main concern is that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government and that the Chinese government could demand access to data of TikTok’s US consumers. The main rationale for that is that China has these national security laws and they compel organizations to help the Chinese government with intelligence gathering. So that’s really the thing that people who are worried about this point to. But there’s also secondary concerns around the algorithm that we were just talking about, this addictive algorithm and around the Chinese government having control or influence over it because we have so many people who are glued to it who are spending hours on this. So there’s kind of more general worries about China having influence on that and how that could influence the US or other countries.

Jordan: Has the Chinese government given any indication that they might A, access the data or B, put any weight on the scale, I guess so to speak, in terms of what people in North America are seeing?

Anja Karadeglija: They have not said that specifically. They have not said that they’re doing that.

Jordan: I mean I assume they wouldn’t admit it, but yeah. Have they said anything about it in general?

Anja Karadeglija: But more broadly? Last year at a congressional hearing, China was already saying it was going to reject a forced sale of TikTok. More recently they’ve said that they’ve signaled that TikTok should fight the ban and experts say that China is kind of betting that TikTok will win that legal fight.

Jordan: Explain the ban or at least the proposed ban in the United States then where did it come from? What does it mean and what’s the status of it?

Anja Karadeglija: So for the past, pretty much since TikTok came around since 2020 anyway, there has been some variation of the talk that should the US ban TikTok, and then we had this bill that seemed like he was moving to quite slowly and then quite suddenly, very recently, it ended up passing as part of a separate bill and it’s been signed and now it’s in place. So basically what it says is that ByteDance has 270 days to sell TikTok. There’s some extensions, but that’s kind of the timeframe. So nothing is going to happen presumably in the next year, but theoretically the bill could be banned about a year from now. Now of course, as I mentioned, TikTok has said they will fight this, legal appeals can drag out for a very long time. So if it goes down that route, who knows how long it could take.

Jordan: What are the options going forward? Would bite dance actually sell its stake? They’ve said not, but I mean, how certain is this and how influxed will this be over the next 270 days?

Anja Karadeglija: Well, they’re calling the law unconstitutional. They’re saying facts in the law are clearly on our side. We will ultimately prevail. So they are going to challenge this on free speech grounds. How that goes and what happens is really unclear. There is the option that they end up selling, but not selling the TikTok algorithm, which I have heard raised, but I don’t see how that would work because that’s really the thing that makes TikTok. TikTok, I’m not sure how much the app would be worth without that algorithm. And interestingly, China would really want to hold on to that algorithm specifically. They have this export control law that actually puts rules in place on experts of algorithms. So China is unlikely to allow a sale and they’re extra unlikely to allow a sale that includes the algorithm.

Jordan: What about in Canada? I know we tend to follow American policy on a lot of technology stuff. Has there been any talk about a similar ban here or is the government looking into anything?

Anja Karadeglija: So what happens when the US bill was first gaining momentum back in March, I reached out and I asked the government, the federal government, are you planning anything similar at that point? They reveal that they actually have a national security review of TikTok that had been launched back in September, but that they never publicly announced or disclosed. So now they’re saying that’s not related to the US bill at all, but they did choose to disclose it then. So that could be a direction that Canada goes, we don’t know what’s going to happen with that. They’re not exactly open about-

Jordan: They’re not telling us about the national security?

Anja Karadeglija: Yeah, exactly. But that is underway and we will get the results that at some point

Jordan: In the meantime, is there support in Canada for that kind of action? How do Canadians feel about TikTok in general? You wrote about a recent poll,

Anja Karadeglija: Right? So about half of Canadians support banning TikTok. Now, there is more support among older people who are less likely to use TikTok.

Jordan: Who don’t use it?

Anja Karadeglija: Yeah. And less support among younger people who use TikTok. Surprise surprise. Overall, about 26% of respondents to the polls said they’re on TikTok, and about 33% of those who have kids said that they allow their kids to use the app.

Jordan: Oh, interesting.

Anja Karadeglija: Yeah. So overall among younger Canadians, about 42% are in favour and about 59% of older Canadians are in favour. One thing that I thought was interesting in that also was that Canadians were actually more skeptical about more widely used apps like Facebook even than they were about TikTok. So as much as they don’t trust TikTok, it’s not like they trust the other social media platforms either.

Jordan: Well, that was going to be my next question, which is practically and taking out what our government’s concerns might be here for the average social media user, what is the difference between giving the Chinese government access to our data and giving it to Meta or Google who will also use it in any way they can think of and sell it to the highest bidder? What’s the difference to us?

Anja Karadeglija: I mean I’m sure proponents of the ban would probably have a different answer, but it reminds me of that debate around Huawei and their 5G networks and experts saying at the time, if China wants to spy on us, China can spy on us. They do not need Huawei for that. And in the same way, if China wants our data, they can just buy it from data brokers. So that data is out there, it’s being collected, it’s up for sale. So if the concern is privacy and sovereignty over own data or however you want to put it, banning TikTok is not going to solve that in the same way that banning Huawei wasn’t going to magically stop China from spying.

Jordan: As you’ve had these conversations and read these polls, do you think that Canadians and I guess Americans as well are sort of becoming a little more aware of what social media algorithms can control about what they see and hear? This is a discussion that we are having increasingly, and maybe it’s just because the algorithms weren’t as good three or four years ago, but I don’t remember having it to the same degree then.

Anja Karadeglija: Yeah, absolutely. I think people are really waking up to the role that algorithms play in our society and the massive power that those behind these algorithms can wield as a result. And we’re seeing that, for example, in Canada, the Online Streaming Act that recently passed, there was a whole debate there about whether algorithms should be making sure to show Canadian content when you go on Netflix because people were realizing just how much control these algorithms have over what Canadians end up watching. More recently, there is an artificial intelligence regulation bill that’s currently at the House of Commons, and it lists out what are considered high impact activities involving AI and social media algorithms and feeds are actually one of those high risk activities.

Jordan: The really interesting thing here is that I have these conversations with experts and reporters all the time. You cover this stuff for a living and you’re still on TikTok and I’m still on TikTok. The algorithm is still doing its work to us.

Anja Karadeglija: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like at a certain point you look at the data protections, data practices, and it kind of seems like you can stay on the internet or get off the internet and I don’t know, maybe it just speaks to the addictive nature of that algorithm, but I guess I chose to stay on the internet.

Jordan: Mark Zuckerberg already has all my data anyway, and if he’s got it, anybody else can get it. So what am I even doing here? Anja, thank you so much for this. This is a fascinating discussion. It’ll be really interesting to see what happens next here.

Anja Karadeglija: Yeah, thanks so much. Great talking to you.

Jordan: Anja Karadeglija of The Canadian Press. That was The Big Story. For more from us, you can head to TheBigStorypodcast.ca. You can also find me on TikTok though really, there’s two videos of a kid and two videos of a cat, and that’s about as far as I got on that app. At least as a content creator. You can also, of course send us feedback. The way to do that is via email, hello@TheBigStory podcast.ca or via the phone. Call us and leave a voicemail. 416-935-5935 is that number. The Big Story is available in every single podcast player, and should that podcast player allow you to do so, toss us a review or a like or a follow or a share or whatever little button they want you to press. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.