Files
Download Primary File (239 KB)
External Research Program
Stanford China Scholars
Advisor(s)
Dr. Tanya S. Lee
Description
China’s recent technological growth has allowed for the rise of massive social media platforms that are based on powerful algorithms. For example, the Chinese technological monolith Bytedance was born in 2013 from the brainstorming within the co-founder’s Beijing apartment with visions of algorithmic sorting of big data gathered from users’ activity on their platforms. In China, it was launched in 2017 under the name “Douyin.” From there, the company expanded until its global 2018 launch of the ubiquitous social media platform, TikTok. Since 2018, the app has enjoyed great renown and use all across the world, with the most prominent user bases in China and the United States. With this unprecedented influence of the newest large social media superpower, concern over evidence of Tiktok’s privacy infringement and data bias have risen. Algorithms within the platform have become more powerful with the recent artificial intelligence renaissance influenced by the United States. Both the Chinese and American governments have taken legal action to tackle the mounting controversies against the app with the evolution of the content algorithms. Within these two countries, the growing technological movement in China has been garnering more attention amongst citizens and governments alike. Alongside America's technological growth, China's artificial intelligence movement has led to the creation of ubiquitous yet invasive platforms like TikTok where influence by the Chinese government and data bias within the app itself is weakening the privacy rights of both American and Chinese students.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Publication Date
Fall 2022
Recommended Citation
Tran, Julia '23, "Suppression and TikToks: Artificial Intelligence in China" (2022). External Student Research Opportunities. 5.
https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/external_student_research/5