The TikTok pendulum
VIDEO-SHARING platform TikTok continues to be a growing phenomenon in Malaysia, but popularity brings not just adulation but also brickbats.

Ever since going global in 2018, the platform owned by ByteDance Ltd has been the subject of scrutiny, especially by the US.

A major reason for this apprehension is the fact that the Chinese government owns special management shares in a subsidiary of ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing but has offices worldwide.

One example of this uneasiness is the recent grilling of TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi, a Singaporean, by US politicians.

The long-running trade war between the world’s two largest economies has not helped TikTok. The rivalry has seen the China government step up its plans to acquire golden shares in subsidiaries of technology giants such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd, as announced early last year.

It has been taking up such strategic stakes since 2017, allowing the Chinese government to safeguard data and influence business decisions in companies with a global reach.

This has further inflamed the US suspicions. A Chinese data security law that went into effect in September 2021 requiring owners of data and infrastructure to conduct inspections and risk assessments increased concerns in the US that these data may be accessed by a foreign government.

As a result, the House of Representatives passed a bill banning TikTok unless ByteDance’s US operations are spun off. The construction of a data centre in Texas to house US data in Oracle Corp’s cloud infrastructure has not convinced US politicians.

The platform was banned in India in 2020 following a border dispute between China and India that resulted in deaths. The vacuum left by TikTok was eventually filled by US-owned platforms.

The India example fuels Chinese suspicions that the US is out to suppress its rise and influence, which has been rapid on a combination of Belt and Road Initiative projects, the lead in technology and the flooding of consumer markets with not only cheap trinkets but also sleek and suave consumer electronics.

TikTok’s Malaysia story is not so much grounded in geopolitics but more so the platform’s ability, when there is content that resonates, to reach out to the masses in domestic politics shaped by volatile race and religion narratives.

TikTok Shop, launched in Malaysia in early 2022, is seen by some as a threat to small-time retailers lacking resources and the gumption to produce compelling content.

It is also being questioned for how its artificial intelligence algorithm, which uses an information flow funnel mechanism, prioritises only successful sellers.

Last October, there was an unsuccessful motion by a PKR MP in the Dewan Rakyat to ban the platform on cybersecurity grounds. There have been conversations throughout last year on banning TikTok in Malaysia.

This was partly fuelled by Indonesia’s ban of TikTok Shop, since rescinded, now that PT Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia are merging under the Tokopedia banner but with TikTok holding a 75% stake.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil recently told Parliament there are no plans to ban TikTok.

TikTok’s Malaysian team has countered these conversations by saying that it supports SMEs and micro- enterprises that sell their products on the platform, empowering them by giving them the tools to target markets that were once near impossible to reach.

The fact remains that the government does have concerns over how social media platforms are increasingly being used to fan 3R issues and propagate scams.

A Reuters report last December noted that Facebook, Instagram and TikTok had to restrict a record number of social media posts and accounts in the first half of 2023 upon requests by the government.

The newswire reported that Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms Inc, restricted six times more posts from both platforms than in the same period of 2022.

Similarly, TikTok removed or restricted triple the amount of content in the first half of 2023 than in the same period of 2022 and it was also the highest number of restrictions or removals in a six-month period since it started reporting government requests in 2019. As for Meta, the restrictions were the highest since content restrictions were first reported in 2017.

Some say that underlying these government requests, which some perceive as stifling dissent or freedom of speech, is a disquiet over how PAS used TikTok adroitly to woo voters during the November 2022 general election and caused Pakatan Harapan parties and Umno to lose crucial Malay support even in highly urbanised states like Penang and Selangor.

Banning TikTok will not be feasible, and that is not just because of Malaysia strategically balancing its interests in the region between China and the US, but also because ByteDance is a potential investor of data centres in the country, bringing much needed FDI and economic spillover effects from the additional cloud storage these data centres can hold.

There has been little support for banning TikTok in Malaysia since Malaysians have readily adopted the platform, despite some reservations. In fact, there may be a backlash if it is banned.

TikTok has also invested heavily, employing thousands and with decent pay. It may be better for the government to embrace it rather than be reactive.

As a solution to the problem of harmful or sensitive content, social media platforms could be licensed, which means they must follow local laws regarding content, which are now governed by community guidelines and government requests for content restriction or removal.

This article first appeared in Star Biz7 weekly edition.
Star Biz7,TikTok,TikTok Shop,ByteDance,trade war,data centre,social media
VIDEO-SHARING platform TikTok continues to be a growing phenomenon in Malaysia, but popularity brings not just adulation but also brickbats.