Interesting move: over time, the lack of updates will degrade the app’s usability
By:
Eric De Grasse
Chief Technology Officer
18 September 2020 (Paris, France) – I will be the first to admit I do not understand the full political, social and economic implications of this TikTok / WeChat imbroglio. I don’t know how a government can put so much focus and attention to banning a private company when half the nation is on fire or threatened by hurricanes, while there’s also a pandemic claiming about 200,000 American lives. But, regular readers of this column will know that despite 27 years in the technology, media, and telecom industry sometimes I am not the sharpest tool in the shed.
I certainly do not understand how the president is supposedly not OK with the data collected by TikTok but is fine with what U.S. companies, from Facebook to Google to data brokers and DSPs and ad tech and all the other data players collect and distribute.
But I do understand that the U.S. president hasn’t been able to use TikTok as successfully as he’s been able to use Facebook and Twitter to rally his base, or spread memes and misinformation, or conduct foreign policy, or create chaos and confusion. I also understand that the president, an ego among egos, was not pleased when TikTok teens trolled his Tulsa rally. As I explained in a post, if you speak with web designers specialized in data processing the Trump campaign’s assertion that “it did not happen; we constantly weed out bogus numbers” is easier said than done. In fact, impossible. The Trump campaign event data tool had been gamed making it inaccurate, and they had no way of filtering it out. It meant insights and Tweets like “WE HAVE 800,000 PEOPLE SIGNED UP! WE’RE GOING TO HIT A MILLION!” coming from Trump’s campaign HQ was derived from a dataset that was 100% junk. TikTok scored.
But then again, the U.S. has a president that believes when you’re a star you can do anything. And it’s not too much of a cynical leap to think that because the president can’t manipulate TikTok in the way he has Facebook and Twitter, that he just wants to shut it down.
My business partner, Greg Bufithis, is writing an in-depth piece on this and and I asked him what we are looking at here. He noted:
The contortions at TikTok and even the Nvidia/Arm deal … the latter being a much, much bigger event because it puts Nvidia at the center of the chip world, uniting the leaders in the two biggest technology trends: artificial intelligence and mobile computing … are an unfortunate sign of things to come. Far from being oddities, these two episodes offer a preview of what I have been writing about which is the new age of nationalism that will change the way multinational firms are run – for the worse. All of these companies straddle geopolitical divides and are at the heart of the digital economy, and the massive changes to come.
It was a long, interesting chat and I’ll save Greg’s firepower for his post due out next week. Just a few points on TikTok and WeChat after I combed through the official announcements and about 20 media reports.
• The US government will ban downloads … or “deplatform” the two apps; I suppose they make Apple and Google turn off a switch 🙂 … in the United States and bar Apple’s app store, Alphabet Google Play and others from offering the apps on any platform starting this Sunday to “safeguard the national security of the United States”. TikTok will be banned by 12 November, but commerce secretary Wilbur Ross said early today that access to that app may be possible if certain safeguards are put in place. I don’t understand why the administration would set a ban date for after the election. There’s a cynical point that it’s because they know the election won’t be called for quite some time, so might as well stifle it? A stretch, I know.
• WeChat, a social media, taxi-hailing, messaging and payment app owned by China’s Tencent, has a billion users worldwide but is relatively small in the US, with 19m users. WeChat users in the US will be unable to use the app for financial transactions from Sunday.
• TikTok has 100m users in the U.S. Oracle and Walmart are in discussions with the company to form a partnership that would address the Trump administration’s security concerns but those discussions have been all over the place today so right now nobody is sure what is going on. As of 11am EST Commerce officials said the ban on new U.S. downloads of TikTok could still be rescinded by Trump before it takes effect late Sunday as TikTok owner ByteDance races to clinch an agreement over the fate of its U.S. operations.
• The government previously said that using and downloading the app to communicate won’t be a banned transaction, although messaging on the app “could be directly or indirectly impaired” by the ban, and people who use it for messaging won’t be subject to penalties.
• The Commerce department said the actions will “protect users in the U.S. by eliminating access to these applications and significantly reducing their functionality”. This is true and a Silicon Valley source told me the Commerce department will prohibit any U.S. use of the distinct computer code or functions that underpin both apps, to prevent the Chinese companies from re-introducing the apps under different names. The lack of updates will degrade the app’s usability.
• However, two interesting bits: (1) The order will not ban US companies from doing businesses on WeChat outside America, which will be welcome news to U.S. firms like Walmart and Starbucks that use WeChat’s embedded “mini-app” programs to facilitate transactions and engage consumers in China. And (2) the order will not bar transactions with WeChat-owner Tencent Holdings’ other businesses, including its online gaming operations, and will not prohibit Apple, Google or others from offering TikTok or WeChat apps anywhere outside the United States.
WeChat is the more interesting of the two moves. It’s popular among Chinese students, Chinese immigrants and some Americans who have personal or business relationships in China. WeChat is an all-in-one mobile app that combines services similar to Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Venmo. The app is an essential part of daily life for many in China and boasts more than 1 billion users.
• The commerce department will not seek to compel people in the United States to remove the apps or stop using them: “We are aiming at a top corporate level. We’re not going to go out after the individual users,” the Commerce department briefing note stated.
And I imagine like most of our readers, I don’t understand how a government can “ban” a communications company when the U.S. has the First Amendment (well, ok, the Trump Administration has pretty much shredded the Constitution), if not to mention the many Americans use WeChat to communicate with friends, family and workers (and, of course, all the payments that occur on the platform). Nor do I don’t understand how a company, after getting ordered by the president to sell its assets, winds up partnering with one of the biggest tech allies the president has. Well, ok, corruption tells me the answer that one. Or how potential suitors … Walmart and Oracle … can end up on the proposed new board of directors. Oops. Right. Corruption. Silly me.
And … to be frank .. most people who want them (especially WeChat) will already have them locked in. For the rest, there are lots of other app stores and instructions across the internet to help you “sideload”. That might be a great way to spend your weekend: learning how the rest of us ignore “the edicts” and get along outside the walled gardens 😎
