Ticking bomb?
Tom Tugendhat, a minister in the British Home Office, warns against applications like TikTok, which have been engineered by foreign countries that are not democratic, such as China.
According to him, these are technological tools capable of influencing "the minds of young British people and harming our sovereignty".
China has already imposed sanctions on the British official, who added that "For too long, foreign interference has been slowly creeping into the inner workings of British democracy. These are strategic threats that are part of an entire campaign aimed at harming British sovereignty and democracy."
feeling threatened
British Minister Tom Tugandhat, photo: Reuters
He also noted that a growing number of young people in the United Kingdom rely on apps like TikTok and other social media to draw their primary information about the world.
This is while the old media (TV, radio) are in decline.
So it turns out that a large public relies on the information programmed and distributed by algorithms controlled by foreign countries that determine what content the user is exposed to.
Does Tiktok serve the regime?
Chinese President Xi Jinping, photo: AP
"A third of first-time voters get their news from sources or organizations that are made up of members of the Chinese Communist Party or from algorithms that we cannot research and test. This is content that will influence the minds of voters and that is largely controlled by foreign countries," he said.
He also noted that "those who think that the editors of these apps are private individuals without a national interest are wrong."
The minister warned that countries that are considered rivals to the West such as China, Russia and Iran may challenge Western democracy with the help of technological means.
In connection with this, it should be noted that the Tiktok account of the British Parliament was closed after several MPs expressed concern that user data on the account was flowing to China.
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