Lawmakers in the UK are now the ones attempting to hobble TikTok for spreading 'dangerous misinformation' according to reports on Reclaim the Net.
Both the US and UK have elections this year and the both administration are said to be frightened that TikTok may be used to circulate 'misinformation' that could damage their chance of re-election. But, unlike the US, who have run with the 'national security' narrative, the British government are attempting a 'less controversial' scheme that focuses on 'child safety'.
The MPs behind this initiative claim it is supposed to stop “misinformation directed at young people.” but under that pretence, a whole raft of restrictions and censorship will be imposed.
A recent report on TikTok told the Government that it “should learn lessons from pandemic to improve communications and counter misinformation.” The pandemic was very much a test-balloon for all such future censorship, with Governments around the world seeing just how far they could go.
The Trusted News Initiative took care of independent media, 'fact checkers' quelled stories that persisted, and shadow-bans took care of the rest. Unprecedented censorship, all to protect big pharma's biggest ever payday, sold to us as 'safety'.
Now, the government wants the “war on misinformation” to keep going along the same lines, and, more efficiently. When it comes to children and teens, the concern is that platforms such as TikTok have become an important “source of news” for them. The fear is that this means they are more and more abandoning “traditional sources of news,” as one report, in one such source of news, put it.
Ofcom claims to have data showing that one in ten internet users in the 12-15 demographic now rely on TikTok for “news” while this number is much higher (71%) among those aged 16 to 24. The government can't have that.
It isn’t clear if TikTok is singled out because of this, or because of (geo)political concerns since the app is already banned on official government devices. But now, the authorities seem to be concerned that they are “missing out” if they don’t participate on a platform that has such wide reach, so some do it using personal phones. However, unlike Facebook, or pre-Musk Twitter, TikTok does not work directly with the UK Government to censor content, meaning the government may have to resort to other means to clip its wings.
The report came at the end of an inquiry, which heard Rebecca Skippage, who is BBC’s “disinformation editor,” profess she would like to “learn from disinformation merchants.”
“They are extremely good at getting people’s attention,” Skippage shared.
Having access to many sources of news is not considered by the MPs behind the report to be a sign of a flourishing democracy; instead, it’s oddly termed, “fragmentation”, “New apps and platforms rapidly become major players, shifting audience habits but also fragmenting the sources the public use for information,” the report reads.
Evidently, the committee doesn’t want the audience’s “habits” to shift, so the proposal is for the government to adopt “a clear strategy for communicating with young people and adapting to the development of new apps and platforms which appeal to this audience.” this will mean the 'replacement' of content that it doesn't like with sanitized, left-wing propaganda delivered as 'trusted news'.