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TikTok’s sale: There is no ‘one ring to rule them all’
America may soon own TikTok but not what really matters: the algorithm that decides what we watch, think and share.
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American ownership of an algorithm such as TikTok's does not make it more “democratic”, just differently biased according to a different dataset and value system.
REUTERS
Simon Chesterman and Chen Tsuhan
When the United States ordered TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest its American operations or face a ban, it was framed as a national security issue. The concern was that the Chinese authorities could use the platform’s data – or its mysterious “algorithm” – to shape what hundreds of millions of users see and think.
But what exactly is being sold? Is it the company’s user base, its data or the algorithm that powers its success? The answer, for now, is murky.
