Show Notes
President Donald Trump’s announced deal for TikTok will give American companies 80 percent control over the addictive, teen-targeted social media platform, but will it really deal a blow to what the Chinese Communist Party calls its “cognitive warfare” super-weapon? Peter Schweizer doubts it.
“A lot of people just assume it’s another social media company like Facebook or Twitter. But in fact, it’s more than that because it’s got the backing of the Chinese government,” Schweizer says on the most recent episode of The Drill Down podcast.
Schweizer’s 2024 book, Blood Money, dealt with the Chinese app extensively, showing that its all-powerful algorithm was not merely a trade secret of ByteDance, the parent company, but considered a state secret by the Chinese regime. While most China-based tech companies are based in Shanghai, ByteDance’s headquarters are in Beijing, just a short walk from the office of the regime’s Ministry of State Security. ByteDance worked closely with Chinese military intelligence to perfect that algorithm, which under the agreement will be licensed to the American purchasers.
“The question is, are these am companies going to be able to exert control over the algorithm? Are they going to make sure it’s not pushing the propaganda aspects of what China wants?” he asks. “Or are they going to kind of turn a blind eye because they’re going to be making money?
Those purchasers formed a consortium that includes business entities of Larry Ellison, the second-wealthiest man in the world and the founder of Oracle, as well as Michael Dell of Dell Computers, Mark Andreesen (Netscape), and perhaps also media baron Rupert Murdoch.
Schweizer says questions remain about how the consortium was selected.
The larger question, though, is whether TikTok even should be rescued. “We’ve done a lot of research,” Schweizer says, reading a passage from the book’s findings on how TikTok came to be:
“In August 2013, at the Communist Party’s National Propaganda and Ideology Work Conference, President Xi explained China’s need to have more sophisticated propaganda. Innovation, he said, was in order: “[We] must meticulously and properly conduct external propaganda, innovating external propaganda methods, working hard to create new concepts, new categories and new expressions.” As he directed in 2016, the year before TikTok was launched, “Wherever the readers are, wherever the viewers are, that is where propaganda reports must extend their tentacles.” A year later, TikTok emerged.” [emphasis added]
This, he says, makes TikTok unlike any other tech company. “People said, ‘Wait a minute! We’re allowing the Chinese Communist Party literally to have access to our children using a sophisticated algorithm that has all kinds of concerning side effects and influences,’” Schweizer says.
“A 2020 study from the Frontiers and Psychology Journal found that TikTok was the most highly addictive of all social media platforms in existence. And it has wreaked significant havoc on a generation of American youth,” he adds.
Few Americans know that there is a version of TikTok available in China. Called “Douyin,” that app is full of science experiments and educational materials – not silly dance videos – and it shuts a user off after 40 minutes of daily use. The Chinese version of the app is also not available from 10pm to 6am, when kids should be in bed. No such restrictions are found in the app available to US children.
TikTok has been an enormously profitable app for its parent company. Will all that wreck the idea of blunting its ability to push Chinese propaganda themes?
Eggers says that psychological research and books like Blood Money exposed TikTok’s power “to be a vehicle for China’s information warfare against the US. Its addictive nature, he notes, “created this very unique and unprecedented moment where both Republicans and Democrats in Congress said, ‘this seems like a bad idea. We should make them get rid of it.’ Joe Biden agreed. And even the Supreme Court said America has a right to defend itself from China.”
“There’s a 2022 Pew Research Center study that said 67 percent of teens between 13 and 17 are affected by this. The study found the digital space contains over-exaggerating content that shapes teenagers’ values in a misleading way. They found the algorithm funnels mentally and emotionally damaging content, including suicide and eating disorders to adolescents within minutes of creating a profile,” Schweizer says.
A New York Post undercover investigation found it directed harmfully persuasive visuals to teens. They also presented a column by one person who said that they felt brainwashed into pursuing gender transition because of the content they consumed on TikTok. So, TikTok has not had a positive impact on American culture.
