TikTok & War
#4 // Savage Dreams and Influencer Schemes: Education, Competitiveness, and Social Media
Education and strategic competitiveness are directly related. Since sharing my brief thoughts on this relationship in my introductory post just over a month ago, I received questions from a number of subscribers asking me to expand on this, which I will do so here today. While that post highlighted my concern on advanced education being subject to successful, spreading attacks in both San Francisco and California today, I was unfortunately reminded recently of a similar concern of mine: the social media app TikTok.
There has been plenty of commentary on the amusement of seeing Joe Biden on TikTok. Saturday Night Live took a jab at how comical the merger of National Security Council staffers and top TikTok influencers on Zoom together is. There is not commentary that we have an executive level goal of using a media distribution platform, controlled by a threatening foreign power, with flaunted goals of their own “public security propaganda, guidance, influence, and credibility.”
We are playing into a future I do not want to see, shown at opening of this article in Fan Wennan’s terrifying artwork: “New York City, Manhattan, 2098.” Below, I detailed how we got here.
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