Friday January 27, 2023
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Meeting Both In-Person and by Zoom
Dampeer Room, Second Floor of Kelvin Smith Library*
Case Western Reserve University
Dear Colleagues:
I guess the name fits a “ticking geopolitical time bomb” but one might wonder “Why America Is Afraid of TikTok.”
Investopedia describes TikTok as “a social media app dedicated to short-term videos created for and consumed by users… The format leads to entertainment and comedy. However, it is increasingly used for infotainment. So-called influencers who gain a steady audience on TikTok offer snippets of advice and tips along with self-promotion. Beauty, fashion, personal finance and cooking are all popular topics for informational videos. Increasingly the format is used to promote and sell products… a growing number of agencies are eager to help brands create the kind of quirky content that gets clicks on TikTok. Conventional advertising that stresses a product’s superior qualities doesn’t work. Light, fun campaigns set to music hit the spot. The ultimate goal is to go viral on the site and spur imitations by TikTok users.” For example, Chipotle did “a Halloween ‘Boorito’ coupon giveaway campaign encouraging TikTok users to dress up for the holiday and post their images. The campaign scored four billion views.” Users, according to Investopedia, run very young (43% age 18-24) and might use it a lot (46 minutes per day in one study).
This sounds quite phenomenal but more a gigantic waste of time than any kind of threat. Or even, for some governments, an opportunity. For example, as News5Cleveland reported, the Ohio Department of Transportation set up an account that recently had more than one hundred thousand followers, sharing “quirky videos” with safety tips, recruitment videos from the highway patrol and highlights from the latest OSU football game.” But TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, and that has placed the App at the center of growing fear of a hostile China that runs a surveillance state on its own people, employs high-tech methods for that surveillance, and has an increasingly aggressive foreign policy. So ODOT will need to find other ways to promote safely, because on January 8 Governor DeWine issued an order prohibiting “state and local government employees from downloading, using or accessing any website or app that is owned by a Chinese business,” and the most popular by far is TikTok. As a recent article in Foreign Policy reports, at least a dozen other states have adopted similar measures, and the recent omnibus appropriations bill bans the app from federal-government-owned phones, while there is a growing political campaign to totally ban TikTok in the United States.
It’s easy to understand suspicion of China, but is the worry about TikTok really justified? It is somewhat bipartisan but seems much more extensive and intense among Republicans. What kind of data could “the Chinese” actually find from TikTok and then use in some threatening way? Is there really no way for TikTok to keep information where the government can’t get it? If TikTok can get dangerous information, should we really feel so great about non-Chinese mega-corporations? Join us as Professors Beck and Parris help us distinguish real from fake issues.
In-Person and Virtual Attendance
In order to make it easy for people to protect themselves and still participate, the meetings are accessible on Zoom. Participants can register for each meeting in the same way they did for the past two years. The link is posted below.
We now have new technology in the Dampeer Room that should make it easier for participants on Zoom to hear the discussion in the room and allow less worry about echoes within the room.
The discussion begins at 12:30 p.m., but the room should be open no later than Noon. We try to have beverages and refreshments set up soon after that. Participants should be able to sign on to Zoom also by Noon. But please remember not much will be happening online until the talk begins at 12:30 pm. Please also remember to show identification when entering Kelvin Smith Library.
Zoom participants should speak up when asked for questions or comments, or submit thoughts through Zoom’s chat function. Please keep yourself muted until you are choosing to speak.
Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. When you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. If you do not get the newsletter, you should also be able to get the information each Monday by checking http://fridaylunch.case.edu/ Then if you choose you can use the contact form on that website to request the registration link.
This week’s Zoom link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMocuGhrj4jGNzCwK5hNVdad9bAe5-8wcUx
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Professor Alon-Beck’s research focuses on corporate law and entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on how legal and regulatory structures influence entrepreneurial opportunities and firms. She is passionate about empowering women to advance in entrepreneurship and leadership positions in the business world.
Professor Alon-Beck joined the faculty of Case Western Reserve from the New York University School of Law, where she served as the Jacobson Fellow in Law and Business. Prior to NYU, she was a visiting assistant professor of International Business and Management at Dickinson College.
Professor Alon-Beck holds SJD and LL.M degrees, with honors, from Cornell Law School, where she served as an editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. She received her LL.M from Tel Aviv University Buchmann Faculty of Law and served as an editor of Theoretical Inquiries in Law.
Girma Parris is Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science. He joined us very recently (December 9) to talk about the general phenomenon of social media and politics, based on what he teaches in his undergraduate course on News Media and Politics. Now he joins us again to focus on one particularly fascinating (his word) aspect of social media.
Professor Parris earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, after doing research in both the United States and Germany for a dissertation that compared the political dynamics of bilingual education in the United States and of Islamic Religious Instruction in Germany. He continues to work on issues of race, immigration, and education in both national and state politics.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
Note: We are still working to create the schedule for the semester. In addition to the programs listed below, a few others are nearly arranged. Please contact me at joseph.white@case.edu to suggest other topics – especially if you can suggest speakers!
February 3: Nuclear Fusion: The Race to Harness the Power of the Sun. With Philip L. Taylor, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor and Perkins Professor of Physics Emeritus, and Cyrus C. Taylor, Ph.D., Albert A. Michelson Professor in Physics.
February 10: Muslim Communities in the West. With Maysan Haydar Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History and Fellow with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
February 17: TBD
February 24: Environmental and Social Corporate Governance. With Victor B. Flatt, J.D., Visiting Professor and Burke Environmental Law Center Distinguished Visiting Fellow, CWRU School of Law; Dwight Olds Chair in Law and Faculty Co-Director, Environment, Energy and Natural Resources (EENR) Center, University of Houston Law Center.
March 3: TBD
March 10: TBD
March 17: Spring Break
March 24: TBD
March 31: TBD
April 7: TBD
April 14: TBD
April 21: TBD
April 28: TBD |
