Government workers in the UK, US, Canada and the European Union (the list will have grown by the time you read this) are prohibited from installing TikTok on their phones.
On Friday, France joined that list, blocking its officials from installing TikTok, and everything else. From the government press release (originals in french):
After an analysis of the problems, in particular security, the government has decided to prohibit from now on the download and installation of recreational applications on professional phones provided to public officials.
Recreational applications do not have sufficient levels of cybersecurity and data protection to be deployed on government equipment. This prohibition applies immediately and uniformly. Exemptions may be granted on an exceptional basis…
From a cybersecurity standpoint, there are two reasons to ban TikTok: One is that it collects a substantial amount of data in its natural course of operation; the other is that it cannot credibly commit to resisting the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to force TikTok to promote the party’s interests abroad.
But any of those reasons raise uncomfortable questions for those who would ban TikTok, because the app isn’t unique. Many apps and companies are exposed to China to a greater or lesser extent, and even more collect large amounts of personal data. So why focus on just one app?
France, at least, seems to have come to the same conclusion. If TikTok can’t be safely installed on government devices, how can anything else be installed?
As with everything to this dispute, there is a geopolitical undercurrent: France may follow the international crowd, but it gives America a bloody nose in the process, highlighting the similarities between TikTok and Facebook’s data collection and stating that none of them is appropriate for a government device.
A world without TikTok?
In the short term, it’s hard not to feel like everything is falling in Facebook’s favor. Sure, the company loses access to some French officials, but everyone knows the real target here, and the longer the bans are extended, the more chance there is that the real ban hammer will drop, and TikTok faces a blanket crackdown.
Analysts at Wedbush Securities said on Sunday that such a ban was a matter of “when, not if,” “with the odds of a ban being over 90% in our view.” We believe that now it is only a matter of time until CFIUS [the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] formally comes out with its recommendations for a US ban.” The legal dispute would be complicated, but the US, at least, probably has the power to do so, since TikTok’s status as a foreign-owned company allows the government to invoke powers designed to protect national security.
TikTok could avoid an outright ban by securing its independence from Chinese-owned ByteDance or by being sold to another American owner, but the chances of that happening look slim. The “Texas Project,” an engineering effort to isolate US user data on servers controlled by Oracle, appears to be just as big a concession the company was willing to make there, and it failed to convince those pushing for a ban.
So what would happen next? It’s hard to say: some of the consequences would depend on TikTok’s own actions. Any technical enforcement of the ban would likely be at the App Store level, as Google and Apple would be forced to oust the app from their centralized distribution. The company could try to continue offering services to US users despite the CFIUS ban by developing its web service, offering Android apps for installation through third-party app stores, and continuing to operate for users who have already downloaded the app. on their iPhones. . It’s not impossible to use a social network in a country that has banned it: just look at the many, many Twitter and Facebook users posting from mainland China.
That would see a slow death of the site, similar to the constant user drain on Musk’s Twitter. Without the seismic upheaval, the winners would be the obvious places other users would flock to: Instagram’s Reels and YouTube Shorts, which have spent years trying to clone TikTok’s appeal (and algorithm) with only moderate success.
More interesting would be if the company decided to push the big red button. Locking out all Americans overnight would cause instant upheaval. Some of the 150 million American users might shrug and open another app, but others, many others, wouldn’t. Their dissatisfaction may not be enough to force the state to back down, but it could deter other governments from following suit.
A new kind of viral image
This week you may have seen the dad’s photo in a white padded jacket.
I hope you also realized that the image is fake. It was generated by the latest version of AI art bot Midjourney, requested to create an image of the Pope in a Balenciaga jacket. (As such, there are an infinite number of similar images available if you want to see more dripped potatoes).
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The photo came on the heels of a similarly viral Midjourney creation, after Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins found himself forbidden tool to create a selection of visualizations of Donald Trump being arrested In New York.
However, the Higgins images didn’t quite escape contention in the same way that the Pope’s photo did, so I think the latter makes a good case for being the first of a new type of viral image: the AI-generated fake that goes viral. despite, not because, it was created by AI.
The fifth iteration of Midjourney is probably the best AI image generator on the market, especially when it comes to generating photorealistic images of humans. It is even capable of generating hands with five fingers. (£), something this technology has notoriously struggled with before now.
So expect this to happen more in the future. The immediate future. Now. It’s time to treat photographic evidence as if it were no more reliable than written statements: if @bonerfart420 posted that Rishi Sunak kicked a beggar, you wouldn’t believe it; it’s time to extend that same skepticism if they post a picture of him being caught in the act.
Microsoft ahead of the game
It’s looking good for Microsoft’s multi-billion dollar acquisition of mega game publisher Activision Blizzard, after the UK regulator dropped one of its key objections. According to the Competition and Markets Authority, Microsoft has provided sufficient evidence that it will continue to make the Call of Duty series available on PlayStation consoles after the purchase is complete, so that risk should be discounted.
“It would not be commercially beneficial for Microsoft to make CoD exclusive to Xbox after the deal.” the CMA says. “Microsoft, on the other hand, will still have the incentive to continue to make the game available on PlayStation.”
That means, more broadly, that the CMA has tentatively concluded that the acquisition “will not result in a material lessening of competition in relation to console games in the UK.”
There’s still the question of “cloud gaming services”: few believe Microsoft would offer Call of Duty to Sony to add to its PlayStation Plus service, making Xbox Game Pass the only subscription the series is likely to have on the foreseeable future, and the CMA could still decide that it is a deal breaker.
Of course, at least two other major regulators are missing, with the involvement of the EU competition commission and the FTC in the US. But the first is is expected to pass the deal itself. That leaves only the FTC still potentially committing to outright opposition to the deal. Things could still go the way Microsoft expects.
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