Parliament on Recess, annual results, internet of things
A Beijing to Britain briefing
Hello,
New data from Ofcom has revealed some notable data points on how Chinese social media giant TikTok may be shaping the way Britain’s young people access news. Although one in ten of 16-24-year-olds claims to consume no news at all (twice the figure for all adults), of those that do, a quarter are consuming their political news via the app. This age group includes many people who have not yet had a chance to vote in a General Election and may well be doing so within the next 18 months.
That concerns British politicians. Their criticisms are well known by now, primarily focusing on TikTok’s relationship with its parent company ByteDance, and the company’s data handling and alleged ability of Chinese employees to access British data from abroad. Accusations of censorship and content removal have also plagued the company for years, despite their protests otherwise.
However, a more complex issue has been raised by a minority of politicians, like Security Minister Tom Tugendhat, and concerns the combination of TikTok’s algorithms and democratic elections. The Minister went on record last year to warn that “foreign states hold considerable sway over the algorithms” that power these platforms, which could impact what young voters see during an election cycle. Interestingly, despite its recent focus on security and China, Labour’s leadership team have said very little on security matters relating to TikTok. Unrelated, but worth knowing, is that TikTok is being advised by Global Counsel, Labour heavyweight Lord Peter Mandelson’s company, who is said to be advising Starmer on various issues. Lord Mandelson is reportedly not “directly involved” in advising TikTok.
As we begin to approach the next election, TikTok will likely come under increasing scrutiny regarding how it serves content to its British user base. This is not an unusual position for social media companies to be in. Facebook’s algorithms have long been criticised, most recently during the 2020 US election. However, at the end of the day Meta, Twitter, YouTube and Google are all Western companies - ByteDance is not. Resultingly, there is a not insignificant chance that some Parliamentarians will begin to accuse TikTok’s algorithm of promoting content that makes their party look weak, or deliberately filling up feeds with videos of their colleagues embarrassing themselves on TV or in Parliament, with a national security angle. It’s going to be a murky 18 months.
— Sam Hogg, Editor
There will be no briefing next week.
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In this week’s Briefing Note, we look at:
Questions in Westminster
UK-Taiwan trade
Research notes on UK-China funds, and annual results roundup