The other journalists who spoke to representatives of the Tiktok press told me that the representatives of the company opened my emails asking for comments with apprehension. A journalist said that a representative told them that invariably, I would ask them to comment on an internal policy, a document disclosed or a new feature that they did not even know existing. And I am currently working on more difficult stories on the platform. (If you have any advice, please Contact me For my signal number.)
However, these difficult stories will not focus on the company Put data to the Chinese authorities or the security risks associated with its link with the Chinese state. Because I found no evidence either. I want to find this link, because like any journalist, I am selfish and I want to be the only one to break a story like that. I have been trying for years to find links to the Chinese state. I spoke to dozens of worn and present tiktok employees, looking for such a connection. But I did not discover it.
I cannot say that the link does not exist. But I can say that I and other journalists, more talented, we have repressed Tiktok’s building. We now know that the company has spy of journalists and a Harassment problems in the workplace. Tiktok’s finances are constantly disclosed. But none of us found the smoking pistol. And I don’t think my colleagues journalists are less impatient to find it than me.
We are in a politically strange position. Donald Trump’s inheritance lives as we have our own personal fictions, which we fiercely believe as facts or that we have repeated so often we forget the truth. Among these fictions: Tiktok is a proven risk. Tiktok is a puppet of the Chinese state. Tiktok is a Trojan horse, waiting to be triggered by Chinese president Xi Jinping to bring down the west.
Asset launched a series of online ads In 2020, saying: “Tiktok you spy.” It is a feeling that has been repeated by other politicians, including the senator of Missouri Josh Hawley, who worries Tiktok’s ties with China.
None of this is true. At least as long as I know. However, to hear politicians on both sides of the alley talking about it, it is a verifiable fact. And they want the application to be prohibited because of this.
These American politicians adopt a curiously Chinese approach: warm and censor in favor of harmony, rather than allowing the free companies of a company that has shown that it was willing to look back to try to respond to concerns, and did what seems to be good faith efforts to solve problems as they arise.
We will probably see a lot of warmth, and not much light, the hearing of the Congress on Thursday. There will be the usual protests of Tiktok that he has no bonds from the Chinese government, and the usual brass band of politicians that Tiktok’s responses are not good enough. But for the good of 150 million Americans Now, using the application, we have to hope that Tiktok’s responses are enough.
