The Unstoppable Rise of Spy Balloon Videos on TikTok: How China’s Attempts to Censor Them Have Failed
As cable news networks scramble to bring cameras to Myrtle Beach to capture F-22 fighter jets orbiting a Chinese surveillance balloon, TikToks of the dramatic confrontation on the world’s most popular app have already gone viral.
South Carolina real estate agent Scott Comey posted two clips Saturday afternoon showing military planes circling the balloon, which garnered about 180,000 views.
Minutes later, he posted a third, showing the balloon being shot out of the sky, and had garnered 2.3 million views in 48 hours.
The clip received 67,000 likes and more than 2,000 comments, including one from Michele6070: “*sees on CNN they shot down the spy balloon..comes to tik tok to see the videos*”.
Not bad for someone with 3,000 subscribers whose home improvement, shopping, and travel Tiktoks typically get a few thousand views at best.
Another video posted on @CarolWoolsey’s account shows someone giving the balloon A two-finger salute to the soundtrack of ACDC’s Thunderstruck had received nearly five million views in three days.
And a separate clip from the @bubbathompson0 account, titled “When Your Drunk Buddy Gets a Video Shooting the Chinese Balloon Down,” had nearly two million views as of Tuesday.
In it, two narrators comment in real-time as the balloon is blown up while offering some spicy shots about Commie China.
The popularity and immediacy of the clips reflects how TikTok’s exceptional reach and engaged user base allows its users to catch breaking news events even more nimbly than dedicated networks.
It also suggests that the platform’s mysterious algorithm directed users to the #chinesespyballoon content.
The world’s most popular app, with more than two billion downloads worldwide, faces calls from US lawmakers for a total ban.
Demands from Washington DC lawmakers for an outright ban on TikTok have intensified in recent months amid fears that Chinese owner Bytedance could be coerced by the country’s authoritarian government into policing US public opinion or shutting down manipulate.
The argument is that by influencing the algorithm, TikTok can put its thumb on the scales and share personal data with its users.
More than 30 states have already banned the app from state devices in the last few months.
US lawmakers feared the CCP would suppress all videos critical of China while promoting its own values to the Gen Zers’ core TikToks user base.
In this photo provided by Chad Fish, the remains of a large balloon floats over the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina, with a fighter jet and its vapor trail visible below on Feb. 4 (AP).
Even China’s richest man, Jack Ma, has been forced out of public life, his fortune stripped and a proposed new IPO of fintech giant Ant canned after mildly critical remarks by President Xi Jinping.
Bytedance previously admitted to using its own app to spy on forbes Journalist Emily Baker White in a bid to track down her sources after revealing that US user data had been accessed in China.
But as the Washington Post written down, TikTok appeared to direct users to the hashtag #chinesespyballoon, though the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still insisted it was an errant weather balloon.
TikTok, like most other social networks, collects data from users to create a curated experience and to moderate what is posted. For example, it collects users’ locations and messages they send each other, and tracks what types of videos they enjoy in order to better target ads to them.
As the geopolitical battle unfolded in the skies over South Carolina, many on social media compared the 200-foot-tall surveillance balloon, with a payload of two thousand pounds, to an app whose stated mission is to “inspire creativity and bring joy.”
“Americans’ phones currently have 210 million Chinese spy balloons in the form of TikTok,” said Ashley Hinson, a GOP congresswoman from Iowa. tweeted.
“We must deal with the CCP’s surveillance state and become aware of this threat.”
Former NBA basketball player Enes Freedom tweeted: “Everyone is talking about the Chinese spy balloon while nearly 100 million people in America have TikTok on their phones!!”
And in his monologue on Friday, Late Night host Bill Maher said: “The Chinese promised they would never use a spy balloon to infiltrate and surveil America. That’s what TikTok is for.”
The company has long claimed that it operates autonomously and does not share information with the CCP.
Spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter dismissed claims that the app was in any way comparable to the surveillance balloon in a statement The Independent.
“There is absolutely no connection between those two things. Anyone who claims this should not be taken seriously on matters of national security.”
Ever since the Trump administration tried to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to a US company in 2020, the social media company has tried to walk a fine line between the two increasingly warlike superpowers.
Last week, the company invited select tech journalists to its Los Angeles Transparency and Accountability Center to counter the idea that it was a propaganda tool from America’s fiercest enemy.
Journalists were invited to complete a tutorial on how the platform’s For You algorithm works to understand how the powerful recommendation system operates.
The company announced its Project Texas partnership with Oracle, which will move all US-generated content and data previously stored overseas to US servers.
For TikTok users like Scott Comey, who has managed to win over CNN with his spy balloon videos, warnings of becoming involved in a huge Chinese surveillance operation seem “overblown,” he said The Washington Post.
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