00:00TikTok, one of the most popular apps in the world, has been at the center of tensions between the U.S. and China.
00:07The Chinese-owned app has 170 million users in the U.S., casting huge influence via screens everywhere.
00:14Estimates show that in Taiwan, over a third of the population uses it, and that figure is highest in younger age groups.
00:21It's an impressive reach, with dangerous implications.
00:24According to one study of young TikTok users in Taiwan, the Chinese-owned app pushes China-friendly political content, sometimes even stirring public distrust in Taiwanese politicians.
00:36That messaging influences Taiwanese people's opinions of their government, political parties, and even their views on China.
00:43I think one of the key points that TikTok often wanted to, or what we call information manipulation, trying to deliver through TikTok to Taiwanese society,
00:54is to emphasize the image that even though being unified, they will have no significant change for normal citizens.
01:02And the results actually surprised us as well, because it did make people become more pro-China, become more, have a positive image about PRC's governance,
01:17and also making people have more skepticism ideas to Taiwanese citizens and Taiwanese governors.
01:25In January, TikTok temporarily went dark in the U.S., when its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, couldn't meet a deadline to divest from the U.S. headquartered app.
01:35The U.S. government's demands were met with resistance from users, with hundreds of thousands of them migrating in protest to RedNote,
01:43the foreign edition of another Chinese app, Xiaohongshu.
01:46In Taiwan, TikTok is only banned from government-issued devices, those used by public servants who could have access to sensitive information.
01:55Lawmakers are still trying to figure out how to regulate the app, which doesn't officially have business operations in Taiwan.
02:15But ordinary users in Taiwan seemed unconcerned about a potential ban of the app.
02:20Others think it could be used as a platform to promote Taiwanese people's ideas instead of China's.
02:32If the government doesn't open the app, then it affects our entire black network as a network.
02:58And lawmakers agree that an outright ban is out of the question,
03:03but they say it's tricky from balancing national security
03:06to protecting citizens' freedom and overall online safety.
03:28And we'll see you next time.
03:58with the US making moves to wrestle control of TikTok and its data and keep it out of China's
04:07hands, the app may once again be at the center of national security discussions in Taiwan too,
04:13as the debate between internet freedoms and digital safety continues.
04:17Scott Huang and Tiffany Wong in Taipei for Taiwan Plus.
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