With Microsoft Purchase of TikTok, US Tightens Grip Over International Media
Even as the government attempts to frame the debate over the banning of
Chinese companies like TikTok and Huawei over privacy concerns, it continues
to try to ban the encryption of data and communications at home.
by Alan Macleod
August 03rd, 2020
By Alan Macleod
Following Donald Trump's Friday announcement that he would ban the popular
Chinese-owned video platform, Microsoft has today swooped in to hoover up
TikTok after it received "personal assurances" from the president himself
that he would back such a move. Trump has given the two parties up to 45
days to hash out a deal. ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, values its U.S.
operations at $50 billion, but it is not at all certain they will receive
fair compensation, given their predicament. The platform is by far the most
downloaded app in Apple's app store, with over 800 million active users
worldwide, including over 100 million in the United States, primarily
members of Generation Z.
The move comes amid growing American aggression towards Beijing, ostensibly
over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, its treatment of Uyghurs in
Xinjiang province and demonstrators in Hong Kong, and, above all, its
uneasiness at its growing economic power. Early last month the Trump
administration began floating the idea of a TikTok ban, citing potential
national security issues. When asked by Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham if
Americans should use the app, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded:
"only if you want your private information in the hands of the Chinese
Communist Party." TikTok has strenuously denied that it works with the
Chinese government, noting that American users' data is stored in the U.S.,
with strict controls on employee access.
News of the imminent purchase excited the stock market, with Microsoft
shares surging by five percent on their Friday totals. Given that the
company is worth over $1 trillion, the news added $77 billion to Bill Gates'
company's value, suggesting that traders believe they are receiving the deal
of a lifetime. "Microsoft appreciates the U.S. Government's and President
Trump's personal involvement as it continues to develop strong security
protections for the country," the tech giant said in a statement today.
The company is already a preferred partner of the administration and has a
lot to be thankful to Trump for. In November it received a lucrative $10
billion contract to partner with the Pentagon to develop a cloud computing
network that sees it instantly become one of the world's largest military
contractors. The decision to award Microsoft (and not Amazon) the deal was
allegedly made on the behest of Trump himself, who disliked how he was being
treated by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Washington Post. Microsoft also has a
long history of intimate collusion with government agencies, enabling them
to spy on U.S. citizens. Documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that it
worked with the FBI and NSA to allow them to circumvent their own encryption
methods to gather information on hundreds of millions of worldwide users of
its platforms, such as Skype and Outlook. Today, Microsoft said it is
"committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and
providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the
United States Treasury."
The Internet is the new battlefield
"What Lockheed Martin was to the twentieth century, technology and
cyber-security companies will be to the twenty-first," wrote Google
executives Eric Schmidt and Larry Cohen, suggesting that the Internet is the
new battlefield and offering their company's services to the White House.
Although giant new social media companies are thought of as transnational
entities, most are, in fact, very much American corporations. While billions
of people around the world rely on them for their news and entertainment,
they are subject to strict American laws. In January, for instance, Facebook
and its subsidiary platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp banned all positive
mentions of General Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian leader assassinated in a
U.S. drone strike. This was because the Trump administration deemed the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an official extension of Iran's
military, a terrorist organization. "We operate under U.S. sanctions laws,
including those related to the U.S. government's designation of the IRGC and
its leadership," Facebook explained. This is particularly problematic as
Soleimani was Iran's most popular living figure, with an over 80 percent
approval rating, meaning that Iranians were banned from sharing a majority
opinion online with other Iranians in Iran, speaking in Farsi, because what
Trump had decided from the other side of the planet.
In its drive against fake news, Facebook also partnered with the Atlantic
Council to decide what news to promote and what to censor and remove. The
Atlantic Council was born out of NATO and has a board of directors including
high government officials like Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice and Colin
Powell, ex-Generals like Wesley Clark and David Petraeus, and CIA chiefs
like Leon Panetta, Michael Hayden, and Robert Gates. Similarly, Reddit's
Director of Policy is a former Atlantic Council deputy director, ensuring
the popular website aligns with Western foreign policy goals. Meanwhile, a
senior Twitter executive is an officer in the British Army's 77th Brigade, a
unit dedicated to information warfare and online psychological operations.
U.S. government-funded think tanks also advise Twitter and other platforms
on which websites to blacklist and which accounts to delete, leading to a
huge reduction in traffic for alternative media and hundreds of thousands of
critical voices silenced. Effectively then, the U.S. government is in
control over much of what America - and the rest of the world - see online,
creating something coming to resemble a global state-controlled media
apparatus.
Even as the government attempts to frame the debate over the banning of
Chinese companies like TikTok and Huawei over privacy concerns, it continues
to try to ban the encryption of data and communications at home. This would
essentially end even the pretense of online privacy, giving state agencies
virtually unfettered access to any data it wished to see. Thus, it is
possible that the forced transfer of TikTok to Microsoft may have far more
to do with control over the means of world communication than genuine
worries about our own civil liberties.