Regular users of the short-video app TikTok are more likely to subscribe to narratives that favor the Chinese government, according to research published this month in Taiwan.
In a public opinion poll released on December 11, 18.2 percent of respondents identified themselves as TikTok users, who were active on the app an average of 4.4 days per week.
In Taiwan, TikTok is also commonly known by its Chinese name Douyin. However, a separate Douyin app also exists and is exclusive to users within China.
Taiwanese TikTok users were more likely, by up to 10 percentage points or more, to agree with arguments that cast skepticism on the United States while leaning toward China's political positions, according to the results published by Taiwan's Information Environment Research Center (IORG), a nonprofit specializing in fact-checking and disinformation on Chinese-language social media.
The commissioned poll was conducted by the Survey Research Center at National Chung Cheng University from October 2-21, when it collected 1,129 valid samples with a margin of error of 2.92 percent.
The survey of adults over the age of 20, Taiwan's legal voting age, found overall favorability tilting toward the U.S. at 63.6 percent versus 16.2 for China.
Chinese-speaking TikTok users, however, agreed in majorities or pluralities with frames including the belief that the Taiwanese government's closer relations with the U.S. were "provoking China," and therefore more likely to lead to a conflict across the Taiwan Strait.
They also agreed that Taiwan's economic prosperity would require the signing of various trade deals with Beijing, the results showed.
Around the world, TikTok has more than 1 billion monthly active users, the company said in September 2021.
This past February, Kepios, a Singapore-based advisory firm, said Taiwan had 5.33 million TikTok users over the age of 18, nearly a quarter of Taiwan's population of 24 million.
Douyin, on the other hand, had around 750 million monthly active users as of May this year, according to analytics service QuestMobile, based in Beijing.
The original Chinese-language app is exclusive to the mainland Chinese market and geo-blocked in all other countries and regions, although it is possible to circumvent the restriction using certain workarounds. The two apps share a near-identical interface but have different content.
In Taiwan, as in the U.S. and other Western countries, TikTok has been banned on government devices over cybersecurity concerns linked to the app's parent company in Beijing, ByteDance.
In the IORG poll, 69.5 percent of respondents said they sometimes or often hear that China "steals personal data" through TikTok or similar apps—an allegation the company denies.
A separate study published on December 21 by the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University's Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience concluded there was "a strong possibility that TikTok systematically promotes or demotes content on the basis of whether it is aligned with or opposed to the interests of the Chinese government."
TikTok's content was "either amplified or suppressed based on its alignment with the interests of the Chinese government," according to the report's authors, who analyzed the app's most popular politics-related hashtags.
"Future research should aim towards a more comprehensive analysis to determine the potential influence of TikTok on popular public narratives," they said.
"Should such research determine that TikTok users exhibit attitudes and assessments of world events aligned with the information distortions that we have discovered, democracies will need to consider appropriate countermeasures to better protect information integrity and mitigate potential real-world impacts," the researcher said.
Reached by Newsweek, a TikTok spokesperson said in a written response: "The report uses a flawed methodology to reach a predetermined, false conclusion."
"It fails to take into account the basic fact that hashtags are created by users, not by TikTok. Most importantly, anyone familiar with how the platform works can see for themselves the content they refer to is widely available and claims of suppression are baseless," the company said.
Update 25/12/23, 10:25 a.m. ET: This article was updated with a statement from TikTok.
Update 28/12/23, 11:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional context about the distinction between TikTok and Douyin, as well as the availability of both apps in Taiwan.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more
