The TikTok Algorithm and How It Works

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Two of TikTok's top 10 apps are from Chinese e-commerce apps. By default, an e-commerce app is going to have your home address because that's how it's going to mail you those shoes. So I was kind of looking at it and I'm like, is it because TikTok is presumably getting that data and manipulating us? Other apps do that too?

Paris Marx is joined by Shoshana Wodinsky to discuss the unconvincing arguments being made for a TikTok ban in the United States, then by Daniel Greene to explore how the turn against Chinese technology signals a shift in US policy on the internet and technology.

Shoshana Wodinsky is a freelance reporter, previously at Marketwatch and Gizmodo. She writes the Tubes newsletter. Daniel Greene is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies and the author of The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope. Follow Shoshana on Twitter at @swodinsky and Daniel at @Greene_DM.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Paris wrote about the effort to ban TikTok and why it shows the US desire to protect its technological dominance.
Shoshana broke down the Congressional hearing with TikTok’s CEO in her newsletter and explained how data brokers get data from many social media apps.
A priest was outed through his Grindr data, which was part of a campaign by Catholic conservatives to identify priests using gay dating apps.
The Strava fitness app gave away the location of secret US military bases when soldiers used the app on their runs.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have been buying US phone data.
Meta paid a firm linked to the Republican Party to smear TikTok.
In Foreign Affairs, Dan Wang explained how China has developed its tech industry with insights gained through the manufacturing process.
After TikTok, there’s a campaign to get Shein in the crosshairs of lawmakers.
Adam Tooze wrote for Foreign Policy about why the US shouldn’t feel it can dictate the path of China’s development.