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Oct 3 • 22 tweets • 6 min read
The Biden Administration is working on a deal for government oversight of TikTok. The risk of U.S. persons' data being sent to China is real.

Yet far less attention has been paid to TikTok's recommendation algorithm and its insidious risks. [THREAD]

nytimes.com/2022/09/26/tec…
1/ What do we know about TikTok's algorithm? Recommendation algorithms play a powerful role in teeing up content for social media users.

Facebook and YouTube have come under fire from independent analysts for recommending extreme and incendiary content. nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opi…
2/ TikTok's recommendation algorithm plays an even more central role in promoting content, yet it is even more opaque.
stratechery.com/2020/the-tikto…
3/ On numerous occasions, TikTok has appeared to censor political content.
aspi.org.au/report/tiktok-…
4/ In June 2020, TikTok issued a public apology because “a technical glitch made it temporarily appear as if posts uploaded using #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd would receive 0 views."
newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/a-messag…
5/ TikTok also had to issue an apology after it said a “human moderation error” caused it to block a user who had posted a viral video criticizing the Chinese government’s treatment of Muslims.
reuters.com/article/us-byt…
6/ TikTok similarly apologized after clips of “tank man” (the unknown protestor who stood in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989) was temporarily censored.
hrw.org/news/2020/01/2…
7/ Journalists have found TikTok has a suspicious absence of videos of Hong Kong pro-democracy protestors.
washingtonpost.com/technology/201…
8/ Independent researchers have also claimed TikTok has a marked absence of videos of content relating to the Houston Rockets basketball team, whose general manager publicly sided with Hong Kong protestors.
stratechery.com/2019/the-china…
9/ Independent researchers have found a glut of pro-Chinese Communist Party propaganda videos about Xinjiang on TikTok.
aspi.org.au/report/tiktok-…
10/ In 2019, The Guardian revealed leaked documents from ByteDance outlining TikTok’s moderation guidelines, which included censorship of political content.
theguardian.com/technology/201…
11/ Examples of banned content included "inciting the independence of . . . Tibet and Taiwan,” “demonisation or distortion of local or other countries’ history such as . . . Tiananmen Square incidents"
12/ In a company statement, ByteDance said “The old guidelines in question are outdated and no longer in use.”
theguardian.com/technology/201…
13/ Can we trust that TikTok's algorithm isn't subtly censoring political content to comply with the Chinese Communist Party's vision of the world? The evidence doesn't look good.
14/ Critics of the U.S. government's approach to TikTok have said the Trump and Biden Administrations are targeting TikTok simply because it is owned by a Chinese firm (ByteDance). And yes, that is precisely the issue.
15/ Any Chinese company is ultimately subject to the Chinese Community Party’s direction, through both legal and extralegal means. If the CCP demands that they hand over data or censor content, ByteDance, like any other Chinese company, must comply.
16/ While ByteDance can (and has) contested the U.S. government's demands in an independent judiciary—as well as in the court of public opinion—but they have no such recourse in China.
17/ In 2018, Zhang Yiming, then-CEO of ByteDance, issued a public apology letter in which he affirmed his fealty to Xi Jinping thought and stated that “technology must be led by the socialist core value system.”

He had no choice.
chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tec…
18/ Whether TikTok is actually censoring content, promoting pro-CCP propaganda, or exfiltrating U.S. data back to China is, in some sense, beside the point. So long as TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, the risk remains.
19/ Society is grappling with the risks of disinformation on powerful social media platforms, but these risks are magnified when platforms are owned by companies ultimately beholden to the Chinese Communist Party.
20/ The United States and other democracies must come together to push back against the creeping trend towards digital authoritarianism.
21/ A key component of building a free, open, truthful, and transparent information environment is ensuring that social media platforms are not censoring or promoting political content to serve the aims of authoritarian regimes.

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More from @paul_scharre

Paul Scharre Profile picture
Oct 3
Breaking news today on sweeping new U.S. government restrictions on chips to China coming soon.

Why these restrictions are:
(1) A big deal
&
(2) Likely a bad move

🧵
washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
The chip ecosystem is highly globalized yet has key technology chokepoints that give a few countries (Taiwan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States) outsized leverage over semiconductor fabrication. 2/
U.S. companies play a vital role in the equipment used to manufacture chips, especially specialized design software.

Advanced chips produced anywhere in the world depend on U.S. tools for fabrication, giving the U.S. leverage over who can access cutting-edge chips. 3/
Read 13 tweets
Paul Scharre Profile picture
Mar 12
What lessons should we draw from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for defending other U.S. partners (ahem, Taiwan) from autocratic aggressor states? 🧵
1. Imagine the unthinkable: U.S. policymakers need to expand their horizons of what is possible, pushing back on our cognitive bias to assume the future will be like the present.
2. Deterrence failed: The United States and European allies responded insufficiently, time and again, to Putin’s military aggression in Georgia, Crimea, and Donbas, to deter further aggression.
Read 22 tweets
Paul Scharre Profile picture
Mar 11
How can the U.S. stop Putin’s aggression in Europe without starting WWIII?

Summary 🧵 of my latest in @DefenseOne

defenseone.com/ideas/2022/03/… 1/
The greatest risk the United States and European countries face right now is mission creep from their own desire to do more in Ukraine. 2/
Some of the options being suggested for U.S. actions in Ukraine – establishing no-fly zones or safe zones – are dangerous, would drag the U.S. into the conflict, and would not be effective in preserving Ukrainian independence or protecting civilians. 3/
Read 12 tweets
Paul Scharre Profile picture
Mar 8
Two weeks into the largest land war in Europe since WWII, it’s still early in the conflict, but what initial lessons can we draw? 🧵
1. Non-material factors have dominated the early conflict. Terrible Russian force employment, planning, communication, and morale stand in contrast with a strong Ukrainian will to fight.
2. Political factors may have contributed to poor military planning. Russia’s initial “thunder runs” with unprotected convoys may have been based on a desire to swiftly topple the government and avoid the international backlash from a protracted war, as is unfolding now.
Read 33 tweets
Paul Scharre Profile picture
Jul 14, 2021
Interesting and valuable graphic and the article is even better — kudos to @LongWarJournal @billroggio ... but it’s a bit misleading to start the clock on the Afghan war in April 2021. It would be more illuminating to show the trends over the last several years leading to now
The Taliban’s strength did not spring up de novo in April 2021 after the US announced withdrawal. Years of Taliban advances have led to this moment. The hollowness of the Afghan government and security forces is striking despite 20 years of US assistance
It’s a good graphic and article, but I am disappointed in a larger trend in reporting and commentary about the Taliban’s recent gains since April that gloss over the Taliban’s gains over the last several years that have led to this moment
Read 5 tweets
Paul Scharre Profile picture
Sep 29, 2020
Two trends at work here:

1) Diminishing value of armor (protection). Armor alone is not enough to protect tanks. Need APS, concealment, ... layered defenses.

2) Drones lower the bar for airpower

Both trends are underappreciated by the US military [THREAD]
This article by @TheEconomist @shashj get it right: "We’re reaching the apex of the armour versus gun race—and armour has lost that race." Armor alone is not enough in an era of precision-guided anti-tank munitions

economist.com/science-and-te…
This trend has been building for a long time. The steady proliferation of ATGMs is a real threat to armor. Drones complicate the equation b/c can attack from above where armor is thinnest.

Tanks won't go away, but survivability will depend on more than just armor.
Read 10 tweets

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