January 26, 2025 ☼ op-ed ☼ Times of India ☼ Information Age ☼ Information Warfare ☼ Tech Policy
TikTok for offence and the Great Firewall for defence: recognising China's information warfare strategy.
In Philip K Dick’s 1959 science fiction short story a team of Earth’s toy safety inspectors are tasked with examining toys from alien civilisations to determine whether they should be allowed for import. The Ganymedans are planning to attack Earth so the inspectors are trying to be more vigilant and careful checking a shipment from that civilisation. Three toys are up for examination: a military assault game, a virtual reality body suit and a Monopoly-like board game. Suspicious that the first two could have ulterior motives, the inspectors only approve the board game for import. One of the inspectors takes it home to play it with his family, to discover that the winner of the game is the one who surrenders as many assets as possible. Too late, the inspector realises that the objective of the Ganymedan board game is to teach Earth children the naturalness of surrendering.
I was reminded of the story when we saw United States government coming down hard on China in the technology trade but suspending the ban on TikTok. Washington is making a serious mistake. The highly popular and very addictive video sharing app is not merely an innocuous way for people to entertain themselves. It is, more accurately, an information weapon in the hands of the Communist Party of China. Its purpose is to hack the minds of its users and turn public opinion in directions that suit Beijing’s interests. Since China censors foreign media and blocks foreign social media apps from its domestic internet, Beijing enjoys a massive asymmetric advantage in the psychological war against its open, liberal democratic counterparts.
Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported how public opinion among Taiwan’s youth had dramatically changed in favour of submission to Beijing. Kathrin Hille writes that “there are indications that, among young people, Taiwan’s decades-old trend towards ever stronger support for independence might also be going into reverse…There are many potential reasons for these changes. But for a number of Taiwanese social scientists and ruling party politicians, one of the main causes is TikTok.” There is certainly a correlation. But is TikTok the main cause? Now, social phenomena have many causes and it would take a massive amount of data, research and time to arrive at a definitive conclusion. But by then, it might be too late. Where the risks are significantly high, it is sensible to take the prudent route and pre-emptively arrest the most likely suspects. Banning TikTok is a small price to pay to protect national sovereignty.
Information warfare is consists of both cyber warfare (hacking machines) and cognitive warfare (hacking minds). It is the use of information to influence decisions in order to achieve a political objective without necessarily using physical force. Like war, it is the politics by other means. The fact that no shots are fired does not make it less effective. Indeed, it might make it even more so. After all, what could possibly be wrong in Beijing peacefully persuading young Taiwanese people the merits of re-entering the warm embrace of their motherland? Far better than mounting a military invasion, no?
I am more in support of India’s ban on today than I was when it was first imposed in 2020. First, it has become abundantly clear that not only do social media platforms confer political power on their owners, but that the owners use them in partisan ways. Elon Musk not only used Twitter to promote Donald Trump’s campaign but seeks to influence electoral politics in Brazil, Germany and Britain. The difference between Western social media platforms and Chinese ones is — at this time — that there is enough to distinguish their political interests from state policy. Twitter and Meta have not yet become complete instruments of Washington’s foreign policy. Also, unlike Western markets do not firewall foreign social media platforms out of their domestic markets. That might change in the future. India should have no qualms banning apps from countries that do not allow our media companies from operating in their territories.
Second, based on what we now know about how the human mind works amid pervasive information networks, there is a case to emphasise the freedom to think as an important aspect of the fundamental right to freedom. The Indian republic is enjoined to protect this freedom as much as it does our physical freedom. Cognitive security — protecting our minds from being influenced without our consent — is thus an aspect of national security. In the coming years, social media platforms will face greater scrutiny as to their psychological impact. At this time, the platform owner’s monopoly over timeline algorithms and their opacity is already a cause for concern. Since China has mandate its private companies by law to serve as instruments of its politics and ideology, it is reasonable to treat TikTok as a security threat. (American platforms might have similar capabilities, but at this time US troops are not engaged in a military confrontation with us.)
The Trump administration, like the toy inspectors in the story, has made a mistake in allowing TikTok to continue.
If you would like to share or comment on this, please discuss it on my GitHub
Previous © Copyright 2003-2024. Nitin Pai. All Rights Reserved.