Wednesday, April 24, 2024

TikTok may be banned in the US. Here’s what happened when India did it

The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban.
 April 24, 2024


NEW DELHI (AP) — The hugely popular Chinese app TikTok may be forced out of the U.S., where a measure to outlaw the video-sharing app has won congressional approval and is on its way to President Biden for his signature.

In India, the app was banned nearly four years ago. Here’s what happened:


WHY DID INDIA BAN TIKTOK?

In June 2020, TikTok users in India bid goodbye to the app, which is operated by Chinese internet firm ByteDance. New Delhi had suddenly banned the popular app, alongside dozens other Chinese apps, following a military clash along the India-China border. Twenty Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed, and ties between the two Asian giants plunged to a new low.

The government cited privacy concerns and said that Chinese apps pose a threat to India’s sovereignty and security.

The move mostly drew widespread support in India, where protesters had been calling for a boycott of Chinese goods since the deadly confrontation in the remote Karakoram mountain border region.


MORE ON TIKTOK


What a TikTok ban in the US could mean for you


Senate passes bill forcing TikTok’s parent company to sell or face ban, sends to Biden for signature


The EU ratchets up pressure on TikTok’s new rewards app over risks to kids, warns of suspension

“There was a clamour leading up to this, and the popular narrative was how can we allow Chinese companies to do business in India when we’re in the middle of a military standoff,” said Nikhil Pahwa, a digital policy expert and founder of tech website MediaNama.

Just months before the ban, India had also restricted investment from Chinese companies, Pahwa added. “TikTok wasn’t a one-off case. Today, India has banned over 500 Chinese apps to date.”

HOW DID USERS AND CREATORS REACT?

At the time, India had about 200 million TikTok users. And the company also employed thousands of Indians.

TikTok users and content creators, however, needed a place to go — and the ban provided a multi-billion dollar opportunity to snatch up a big market. Within months, Google rolled out YouTube Shorts and Instagram pushed out its Reels feature. Both mimicked the short-form video creation that TikTok had excelled at.

“And they ended up capturing most of the market that TikTok had vacated,” said Pahwa.

In India, TikTok content was hyperlocal, which made it quite unique. It opened a window into the lives of small-town India, with videos coming from tier 2 and 3 cities that showed people doing tricks while laying down bricks, for example.

But for the most part, content creators and users in the four years since the ban have moved on to other platforms.

Winnie Sangma misses posting videos on TikTok and earning a bit of money. But after the ban, he migrated to Instagram and now has 15,000 followers. The process, for the most part, has been relatively painless.

“I have built up followers on Instagram too, and I am making money from it, but the experience isn’t like how it used to be on TikTok,” he said.

Rajib Dutta, a frequent scroller on TikTok, also switched to Instagram after the ban. “It wasn’t really a big deal,” he said.

HOW IS INDIA’S BAN DIFFERENT FROM THE U.S.

The legislation to outlaw the app has won congressional approval and now awaits a signature from Biden.

The measure gives ByteDance, the app’s parent company, nine months to sell it, and three more if a sale is underway. If this doesn’t happen, TikTok will be banned. It would take at least a year before a ban goes into effect, but with likely court challenges, it could stretch longer.

In India, the ban in 2020 was swift. TikTok and other companies were given time to respond to questions on privacy and security, and by January 2021, it became a permanent ban.

But the situation in the U.S. is different, said Pahwa. “In India, TikTok decided not to go to court, but the U.S. is a bigger revenue market for them. Also, the First Amendment in America is fairly strong, so it’s not going to be as easy for the U.S. to do this as it was for India,” he said, in reference to free speech rights in the U.S. Constitution.

As Chinese apps proliferate across the world, Pahwa says countries need to assess their dependency on China and develop a way to reduce it as the apps can pose a national security risk.

The app is also banned in Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan and restricted in many countries in Europe.

“Chinese intelligence law and its cybersecurity law can allow Chinese apps to work in the interest of their own security. That creates a situation of distrust and it becomes a national security risk for others,” said Pahwa.


TikTok to fight US ban law in courts

By AFP
April 24, 2024

US and other Western officials have voiced alarm over the popularity of TikTok with young people, alleging it allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users - Copyright AFP Antonin UTZ

TikTok’s CEO vowed Wednesday to fight in the courts to overturn a newly signed US law that could see the popular app banned due to allegations it is controlled by the China government.

The legislation gives TikTok nine months to divest from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or be shut out of the American market.

US and other Western officials have alleged the social media platform allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users. It has 170 million users in the United States alone, many of them young.

Critics say TikTok is also a conduit to spread propaganda. China and the company strongly deny the claims.

“Make no mistake, this is a ban. A ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice,” TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew said in a video posted on TikTok moments after President Joe Biden signed the bill into law.

“Politicians may say otherwise, but don’t get confused. Many who sponsored the bill admit a Tiktok ban is the ultimate goal.”

Chew called the move “ironic” given that the “freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom.”

“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” Chew told the platform’s users.

“We will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. The facts and the Constitution are on our side.”

The ban measure was included in a $95 billion foreign aid package, including military assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The bill, which could trigger the rare step of barring a company from operating in the US market, passed the Senate by a 79-18 vote three days after it cleared the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support.

Under the bill, ByteDance would have to sell the app or be excluded from Apple and Google’s app stores in the United States.

TikTok for years has been in the crosshairs of American authorities, who say the platform allows Beijing to snoop on users in the United States.

The bill passed by Congress also gives the US president the authority to designate other applications as a threat to national security if they are controlled by a country deemed hostile.

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, came out last week against banning TikTok, saying “doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression.”


TikTok suspends rewards programme after EU probe


By AFP
April 24, 2024

TikTok Lite arrived in France and Spain in March allowing users aged 18 and over to earn points that can be exchanged for goods - Copyright AFP Jade GAO

Raziye AKKOC

TikTok on Wednesday announced the suspension of a feature in its spinoff TikTok Lite app in France and Spain that rewards users for watching and liking videos, after the European Union launched a probe.

The popular video-sharing social media platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, said the suspension would remain “while we address the concerns that they have raised”.

The European Commission’s top tech enforcer, Thierry Breton, said the EU investigation would continue, stating: “Our children are not guinea pigs for social media.”

TikTok Lite arrived in France and Spain — the only EU countries where it is available — in March. Users aged 18 and over can earn points to exchange for goods like vouchers or gift cards through the app’s rewards programme.

TikTok Lite is a smaller version of the popular TikTok app, taking up less memory in a smartphone and made to perform over slower internet connections.

The European Commission on Monday announced an investigation into TikTok Lite, and threatened to have the rewards programme suspended, raising concerns about the risk to users’ mental health.

The commission demanded TikTok provide more information by a Wednesday deadline, along with any defence against the threatened suspension.

Breton said in a statement that “our cases against TikTok on the risk of addictiveness of the platform continue”.

“We suspect that this (rewards) feature could generate addiction and that TikTok did not do a diligent risk assessment and take effective mitigation measures prior to its launch,” he said.

The probe is the EU’s second against TikTok under a sweeping new law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), that requires digital firms operating in the 27 nations to effectively police online content.

In February, the commission opened a formal probe into TikTok over alleged violations of its obligations to protect minors online.

– TikTok squeezed –

TikTok is also under pressure across the Atlantic.

A bill to ban TikTok cleared the US Congress after the Senate on Tuesday approved legislation requiring TikTok to be divested from ByteDance.

TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, said the company would fight the law — which he said amounted to a ban — in US courts.

The European Commission has refused to comment on the United States’ move. Instead it has focused on the EU’s legal arsenal to bring big tech into line with its rules.

The move against the TikTok Lite rewards scheme was the latest instance of the EU flexing that legal muscle against online platforms.

It is also investigating tech billionaire Elon Musk’s X, the former Twitter, over alleged illegal content.

TikTok Lite users can win rewards if they log in daily for 10 days, if they spend time watching videos (with an upper limit of 60 to 85 minutes per day), and if they undertake certain actions, such as liking videos and following content creators.

TikTok is among 22 “very large” digital platforms, including Amazon, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, that must comply with stricter rules under the DSA since August last year.

The law gives the EU the power to hit companies with heavy fines as high as six percent of a digital firm’s global annual revenues. Repeat offenders can see their platforms blocked in the EU.

Chinese sellers go to TikTok school to reach buyers abroad


By AFP
April 24, 2024

Chinese students at an e-commerce school rehearse selling hijabs and abayas into a smartphone - Copyright AFP Jade GAO

Jing Xuan TENG

Donning hijabs and floor-length abaya gowns over shorts and tank tops, Chinese students at an e-commerce school perform into a smartphone camera as they learn how to sell the clothes to overseas TikTok users.

It is the final day of a two-week course on selling products abroad via the short video app — which despite being blocked in China is a platform more and more Chinese vendors are turning to.

Succeeding on TikTok requires tools for bypassing internet restrictions as well as foreign-language skills, challenges that have prompted a boom in courses and consulting services.

At the school in Guangzhou in southern Guangdong province, an instructor holds up the Middle Eastern-inspired garments to the camera and rattles off prices and sizing information for Muslim buyers in the UK.

“This is chiffon, it’s really breathable!” she gushes in English as her proteges model the goods and sort through racks of satin robes under stark studio lights.

“We teach people which products are selling better, and which markets are more suitable for their current stages,” 27-year-old Wang Yaxuan, another instructor at the school, tells AFP.

Guangdong is home to thousands of factories making a mindboggling variety of products, from the abayas to espresso machine parts to wigs made of human hair.

After decades of producing goods for export, Chinese companies are increasingly seeking to cut out the middleman and market themselves at lower prices, directly to overseas consumers.

Shein, the China-founded fast fashion giant, has effectively taken over the lower-end Western market using this strategy, with TikTok a key facet of its selling network.

TikTok Shop launched in the United States late last year, and e-commerce features have previously been rolled out in places like Britain and Southeast Asia.

A casual scroll on the hugely popular app’s “Live” tab can land users on multiple shopping livestreams within minutes.

But with TikTok unavailable in China — parent company Bytedance operates the more strictly censored sister app Douyin domestically — smaller businesses there are at a disadvantage.

Courses like the one at Mede Education Technology’s e-commerce school help by covering everything from the basics of creating a TikTok account to handling shipping and analysing sales data.

Fees start at around 9,000 yuan ($1,244) for a six-day course.

Students, who range from factory owners to fresh graduates, often take classes for multiple foreign shopping platforms including Amazon and Southeast Asia’s Shopee.



– Information gap –



Qiu Zhouwen, a course participant in his 30s, works for a Guangzhou cosmetics company.

He says his company enrolled him because they are hoping to eventually sell their skincare range through TikTok.

“Information is part of the cost (of doing business) now, and if you don’t have the information that’s appropriate to the market, your cost will be way too high,” Qiu says.

Wang, the Mede instructor, attended university in the United States and says it can be challenging for Chinese sellers to adapt to different consumer tastes abroad.

Chemical manufacturer Donghua Jinlong spawned viral memes on TikTok this month after overseas social media users found absurdist humour in the company’s matter-of-fact videos about industrial-grade glycine featuring AI-generated voiceovers.

There are also significant technical hurdles.

Accessing TikTok from China requires VPN software to bypass the country’s virtual “Great Firewall”, while dodging the app’s own curbs on users manipulating their IP addresses.

VPNs are a legal grey area in China, with authorities occasionally cracking down while generally tolerating their use for business purposes.

TikTok is also caught up in global geopolitical tensions — the US Congress is threatening to ban the app entirely over concerns it could share personal data with the Chinese government.

Wang is unfazed by the prospect of a US TikTok ban.

“Our students are not just selling to the US market… the current trend for TikTok for Southeast Asia is also very good,” she tells AFP.

Wang says it’s not the first time this situation has happened, adding that she feels the United States was trying to “take this huge cake and split up the market”.



– Catchphrases and clicks –



Mede is one of many organisations running TikTok classes, including others based in Guangdong, where authorities have hung up propaganda banners promoting international e-commerce.

Those not willing to shell out steep course fees can also seek advice from e-commerce veterans who have built a following on Chinese social apps by sharing TikTok tips.

Molly Zhao, a 23-year-old TikTok livestreamer, has been selling products including clothing and electronics online since 2022.

Zhao, who studied in Italy and speaks Italian and English, told AFP her foreign-language skills have earned her livestreaming jobs paying as much as 20,000 yuan ($2,760) each month.

She regularly posts videos for domestic viewers on Douyin, covering topics including common English phrases and how to explain shipping rates clearly.

“You must build up the atmosphere,” she explains in one video, adding that using a catchphrase can “make a deeper impression on customers”.

In another video, a smiling, dancing Zhao shares her warmup routine before a livestream session selling gemstones and crystals to US viewers.

“Time to earn Americans’ money,” she says in a deadpan caption. “I’ll put on some music to hype myself up.”

No comments:

Post a Comment