[Update] Trump says Microsoft can buy TikTok

By Claire Wu, a writer from Twitter

US President Trump said in a speech at the White House on Monday (August 3) local time that unless TikTok is acquired by Microsoft or another company, the app will be shut down on September 15. This is the first time he has publicly allowed Microsoft to buy TikTok.

Just last Friday (July 31), Trump said he would ban the short video app TikTok from operating in the US, saying it threatened America's national security.According to the Financial Times, Microsoft will continue to advance from ByteDance(ByteDance)Acquisitions in handtiktokUS business negotiations despite Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella(Satya Nadella)With US President Donald Trump(Donald Trump)Following the conversation, Trump had reservations.

The US tech group also revealed that the potential deal would includetiktokOperations in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Currently, the world, including Australia, istiktokThe scrutiny is getting stricter.

 Microsoft said in a statement last Sunday that the company is “committed to the acquisition subject to a full security reviewtiktokand provide appropriate economic benefits to the United States, including the US Treasury.”

How popular is TikTok?

TikTok already has 800 million active users worldwide.

Photo Credit: SensorTower

As you can see in the image above, TikTok was the most downloaded app in January 2020.

Millions of people learn about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin through TikTok.Cryptocurrency enthusiast James Galante posted a short video titled “Let's All Get Rich” on TikTok, recommending that everyone invest $25 in Dogecoin to push the Dogecoin price up to 1 dollar, triggering the Dogecoin craze to once again sweep the cryptocurrency market; in December 2020, the mobile payment company Square launched a cryptocurrency marketing campaign on TikTok and used #cashappthatmoney标签吸引了1 .365 million Views have made it one of the most popular mobile payment apps in the US; in 2020, videos containing the “coronavirus” were viewed more than 53 billion times on TikTok.

However, this year, TikTok has almost been hit hard by India's ban and US government crackdown. The Pentagon banned US military personnel from using TikTok in January of this year. Some US lawmakers are concerned that the Chinese government is using Tiktok to mine data on US users. However, a TikTok spokesperson said that all TikTok US user data is stored in the US and backup support is provided in Singapore, and is not subject to Chinese law.

Shortly after Trump intended to block TikTok, a disaster occurred where TikTok's “likes” went to zero. According to the “Daily Mail” report, more than 17,000 users reported the problem of returning to zero “based on likes” and “views”. Among them, there is no shortage of full-time operators who rely on TikTok revenue to make a living, causing panic among TikTok influencers in the US. In this social networking platform geopolitical war, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg is expected to be happy to see the flames of war. Zuckerberg had always wanted to buy TikTok, and the short video apps developed to imitate TikTok all ended in failure. However, the reason why Microsoft wants to buy TikTok is because social media has always been its weakness, yet Microsoft's more rigid corporate culture and TikTok's temperament clearly do not match. Whether TikTok can maintain its vitality after the acquisition is also in between.

So, is the US government baseless in its concerns? Let's take a look at how TikTok works.

TikTok's recommendation system will make users addicted

Simply put, TikTok's recommendation system “User-Centric Design” (User-Centric Design) only recommends content that users like. The more active the user and the more data provided, the more accurate the recommended content. For example, if you're watching funny videos, then the recommendation system will tailor entertainment videos for you as a result, and further analyze your preferences in order to more accurately target what kind of funny videos you like.

Photo Credit: Medium, Catherine Wang

TikTok's working system will classify, categorize, and label massive amounts of content data left by users to make more accurate recommendations in the future. It also identifies data on user usage scenarios. For example, when commuting to work or traveling, users prefer to watch different types of videos, create user portraits and usage scenarios based on the various tags, occupations, ages, and genders left by users on TikTok, and train machine learning algorithms. When a user reappears in a similar scene, the associated tag will bring up videos they like to watch in the relevant scene (including the user's geographical coordinates, schedule, event, etc.) for you to enjoy. This content that knows you like a “confidant” will repeatedly appear in front of your eyes, prolonging your time and attention on the platform, and even making you addicted. [1]

As you can imagine, no matter where TikTok data is stored, the US government's concerns raised by this are indeed unfounded.

How can data be prevented from being misused?

Many people still have fresh memories of the incident in the last US presidential election where Facebook leaked user data to Cambridge to influence the election results. Four years later, also close to the US election, the relationship between the US government led by Trump and China is in flames. Fearing a repeat of the Cambridge incident, the logic behind banning TikTok is understandable. So, as an app that is popular with the public, how can we avoid data misuse in the 5G, Internet of Things, and blockchain era?

According to the opinion of Xiao Feng, chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain, blockchain plus private computing, cryptography and other technologies should be able to provide low-cost, commercially viable data protection and data collaborative computing solutions. In the future, if regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can more strictly prohibit centralized apps from freely collecting user data when unnecessary, such as scene data that reveals our whereabouts, data on various physical conditions that reveal our health, etc. As far as the application scenario of a short video social networking platform is concerned, the short videos we shoot can be stored on our own private cloud and set whether to encrypt them, and only display links to the videos on social platforms. When other users are interested in watching, they can request and watch through a channel, and the user providing the video can set whether to receive cryptocurrency. Social platforms can use the unalterable features of blockchain technology to store users' “likes” and “views”, etc., thereby avoiding the problem of these important data returning to zero.

Popular social platforms are the foundation for the widespread application of cryptocurrencies

Everyone should still remember the public buzz that started when Facebook posted Libra. At the time, Facebook was full of confidence in bringing Libra, because Facebook is a social platform with 2 billion users, where there are people, there are business opportunities. Given the successful operation of WeChat as a social networking and payment platform, Libra launched by Facebook may also be a downsizing attack on traditional cross-border payment institutions that are bloated and expensive. Well, TikTok, as a world-class social networking platform, could become a strong competitor to Libra in the future. Under the new anti-globalization trend, it may be a severe test for TikTok, but a proactive and forward-looking layout may help TikTok take it to the next level in the future.

Today, the dispute over social media platforms has escalated to a national level of competition. It is also an ideological dispute. The barriers are clear, and they are turning into flames. Data is the “oil” of the new era. Artificial intelligence, AI algorithms, blockchain and encryption technology, privacy protection, etc. will become powerful hidden weapons to help all parties wrestle in all aspects.

Reference article: [1] “TikTok Around the World: Demystifying the Powerful Algorithm System Behind It” (Producer: Seeing the World with the Naked Eye)

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