A recent article in The Times, entitled ‘Why TikTok ‘makes people more eager to visit China’, worries that “people who spend hours scrolling on TikTok are more likely to want to visit China — possibly because the platform censors material that portrays the country in a negative light”. The article’s author is particularly concerned that TikTok users might “see an airbrushed view of China and its human rights record”.
Researchers found that, horrifyingly, users searching on TikTok for terms such as “Tiananmen” or “Tibet” were exposed to a significant number of results that failed to denounce the Communist Party of China. Indeed, it seems that heavy TikTok users typically rate China’s human rights record as “medium”, whereas non-TikTok users rate it as “poor”.
Lee Jussim, a co-author of the research on which the Times article is based, said: “We did the studies because there was ample reason long before our studies to suspect CCP manipulation of TikTok. It’s one thing to suspect, it’s quite another to find it empirically.” He concludes: “Social media companies should be required to publicly disclose how their algorithms determine what content users can access.” Doubtful whether X would be happy with that!
Imperialist propaganda losing its impact?
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s classic 1988 work Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media explores the connection between the economic interests of the ruling class and the ideas that are communicated via mass media: “The media serve, and propagandise on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them. The representatives of these interests have important agendas and principles that they want to advance, and they are well positioned to shape and constrain media policy.”
Western media hostility to China has reached fever pitch in recent years. As the crisis of US and British imperialism has intensified so their need to weaken China by undermining the rule of the CPC has grown ever greater. This is why the US and British have been ratcheting up their propaganda war against the People’s Republic. The accusation that China is committing a genocide (or “cultural genocide”) in Xinjiang has been repeated so often as to acquire the force of truth, in spite of the notable absence of any meaningful evidence in its support. Rioters in Hong Kong are presented as saintly defenders of democratic principles. Chinese weather balloons, kettles and smart TVs are all spying on us, and inscrutable Chinese scientists are sending our secrets directly to the People’s Liberation Army.
Fu Manchu is back, and this time he wants to take our freedoms away.
In Britain as in the US, the bourgeoisie is divided on many issues, but there is a clear consensus when it comes to waging a propaganda war on China. And yet it seems that anti-China propaganda is losing its impact, particularly among young people.
The statistical categories presented by the authors of the research are “those who don’t use TikTok” and “those who spent more than three hours a day on the platform”. Age is fairly obviously a confounding variable here: a significant majority of TikTok users are under 30, and only 27 percent are over the age of 45. Young adults (18-24 years) make up over half of TikTok content creators.
So inasmuch as we can derive anything useful from the research, it’s that younger generations are less invested than their grandparents in idiotic Cold War narratives. That may be partly a reflection of the fact that TikTok’s algorithms – in flagrant violation of the well-known and universal rules of social media – don’t actively boost anti-China content and suppress pro-China content. But it also speaks to the genuine concerns and interests of young people.
For example, surveys consistently show that young people are more worried about the prospect of climate breakdown and are more likely to consider the environmental crisis as an existential threat to humanity. As such, they might be expected to welcome the news that China will account for 60 percent of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030 (according to the International Energy Agency); that China has likely already reached its 2030 goal of peaking carbon emissions; that China is fast phasing out fossil fuel vehicles; that China leads the world in afforestation and biodiversity protection; and that China’s investment in renewables has led to an 80% reduction in the cost of solar and wind energy globally.
Furthermore, young people are notorious for having a curious predilection for peace, and perhaps many of them are impressed by the fact that China hasn’t been to war in over four decades; that it has one overseas military base, compared to the US’s 800; that it has a consistent policy of no first use of nuclear weapons, while the US has a consistent policy of nuclear bullying; that it has worked diligently towards peace in Gaza and Ukraine, while the US has been financing, arming and promoting genocide and war.
While TikTok doesn’t actively suppress negative stories about China, what makes it unique among major social media apps is that it also doesn’t suppress positive stories about China. Users are exposed to a variety of voices, including those who highlight China’s extraordinary development, its contributions to climate change solutions, its successes tackling poverty, and its appeal as a travel destination.
Cultural hegemony under threat
The real concern underlying complaints about TikTok isn’t that the app is distorting the truth; rather that it’s disrupting the West’s long-standing control over historical and political narratives. This becomes even more apparent when we look at how TikTok has influenced global awareness of the genocide in Gaza.
Unlike the mainstream media, where coverage of Gaza is filtered through a lens of racist and pro-imperialist bias, TikTok has become a key platform where young people witness firsthand footage from Gaza, hear perspectives directly from Palestinians, and engage with viewpoints that challenge mainstream narratives. This loss of narrative control is what prompted the Biden regime to attempt to ban TikTok last year. The existence of a popular media space where imperialist propaganda is no longer automatically accepted as truth is simply unacceptable to the ruling class.
TikTok: insufficiently anti-China and insufficiently pro-genocide
A quick online investigation reveals that the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) – the organisation which carried out the research described in the article – is not quite as “neutral and independent” as it claims to be.
Ali Abunimah, writing in the Electronic Intifada last year, notes that “the NCRI is led by individuals closely tied to various Israel lobby groups with a long history of defaming Palestinians and advocates for their rights as ‘anti-Semites’”.
It turns out the NCRI has received funding from the ultra-right Charles Koch Foundation, as well as the Israel on Campus Coalition. NCRI affiliate Kelli Holden was formerly chief of operations of CIA Counterintelligence. Former NCRI director of intelligence Alex Goldenberg was a fellow with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
That is, a research body purporting to be ‘independent’ has deep links to the security state and the Zionist lobby. Little wonder then that the ‘smoking gun’ it presents is that TikTok is insufficiently anti-China and insufficiently pro-genocide.
Throughout the Western world, people are learning to question and reject the crass propaganda pumped out by the mainstream media’s State Department stenographers in relation to Palestine, China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, the DPRK and more. This is an entirely welcome development.
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