Tiktok, first released in September 2016 in China, has been the most popular website of 2021—vanquishing even Google, just three years after its global unleashing. Tiktok is a China-based short video—ranging from 3 seconds to 10 minutes—hosting company that records more than 2 billion mobile downloads, with over 1.6 billion users globally. No wonder that the long prevailing social and info-tech brands must have been traumatized at the shortcut of this success. And yes, it may well have fomented the influential countries who are the pioneers in showcasing such internet products, most particularly the United States among others, to stymie it from growing further. Donald Trump, while being the president, announced the Tiktok ban in the USA in 2020, which, after nearly 3 years later, now under Biden’s presidency, led to its CEO testifying in front of congressmen and establishment of separate operations in the US. Now almost 70% of the US states have already restricted federal and state employees on the use of Tiktok on government devices. Britain and New Zealand have also imposed similar bans in the recent past. Lately, Montana has been the first state to ban Tiktok completely much like what Nepal has decided now. India, meanwhile, also banned Tiktok in 2020, alluding to the loose end of possible data usage by the company, closely reined in by the Chinese government.
While the US and its allies, quite understandably,
might challenge all forms of Chinese supremacy, internet brands not excluded,
as we have been observing their protractedly smoldering economic rivalry and
geopolitical power play. It is a big game of countries in contest to be the
global commander, not only a tit-for-tat strategy against China which has
forbidden many foreign internet websites from the time unmemorable. But, the
Tiktok ban in Nepal has nothing
to give and take with the wider geopolitical game.
The ‘tap tap’ culture brought home the broader repercussions.
Having known that internet penetration of Nepal has surpassed half of the population,
it is not difficult to conjecture that the same number of people are exposed to
the Tiktok content directly or else. There are thousands of Nepali Tiktok
influencers who capitalize this platform to get millions of engagements with
not-so-thought-provoking and not-so-knowledge-offering online streaming.
Followers, in turn, might get enchanted to send online gifts that may have cost
them monthslong sweating blood. That said, it is not to say there is nobody
with good content and commendable output.
Also, the Tiktok algorithm is so dehumanizing our
youths that they have become literally the living zombies—walking absent-mindedly.
It takes only a video or two and you start to fall in a never-ending crevasse.
Yes, every full video you watch or repeat is digging a digital crevasse deeper
to fit you in among your favorites. An invisible wall is gradually built around
a definitive bubble of your liking and you won’t bother to realize because it
is offering a customized entertainment package that a youth seeks in his
adolescence. Therefore, addiction is bound to ensue and there are overarching
issues of declining attention span
among children due to prolonged use.
Tiktok has also produced numerous so-called gurus,
pundits and specialists with their gripping over-exaggerated contents. Instead
of scrutinizing the contents and fact-checking for their authenticity, Nepali
audiences, most quite new to the internet world with a dearth of cyber
awareness, tend to engulf them categorically. So, those pundits are weaponizing
Tiktok to produce their believers and hardliners. Undoubtedly, Tiktok has
yielded a semi-literate medical consultant in every home who advises you how to
cure diabetes, a high-school dietician who indoctrinates you how to fast
effectively and a pompous astrologer who used to be a mason but now predicts
your future. The genuine professionals, unfortunately, have disappeared in the
online crowd of sensational facsimiles. Haven't these short videos really
washed away the nuances of professional capacities? And will they not
eventually jeopardize the delicate balance between the social integrities as
such?
The youth users quite clearly exploit visual
sexualization and spoken vulgarity in the avarice of being viral. This makes
opening Tiktok around family members unsuitable in the dread of ending with a
salubriously shouting pop-up. Further, children might be exposed to the
improper Tiktok contents owing to the leeway to access their guardians’ mobile
anytime. There have been a lot of examples of people becoming online
celebrities overnight, failing to keep up the fame and then living in the
misery of depression, let alone the examples
of people falling off-cliff
and dying while absorbed to make a Tiktok video.
Tiktok is also a contrivance to promote one’s
business and advise travel plans and destinations. Out of 2.2 million
active Nepali Tiktok users, the majority of them are also inclined to use Tiktok
for market research
as well as for making decisions to purchase the products. Admittedly, Tiktok
has been a boon to those with real talents, but at what stakes should we tender
our thumbs up for merely a few reasons that are good? The obvious aftermath of
this ban might be grouping up of the Tiktok influencers, lawyers and activists,
filing cases in the court on account of undermining the constitutional rights
of freedom of speech, access to information and media independence but truth be
told: if government has a proper justification of a ban then it prevails as
bigger democracies in the neighborhood,
Europe
and parts of Africa
are still sustaining such bans.
Banning internet products is never a solution unless
the people are not self-conscientious and judicious. Tiktok should have been
already closely surveiled as there were overt cases of users being imposter,
creating obscene materials, disinforming public for vested interests and
promoting the culture of foul-mouthing and hatred. And this is not unequally
applicable to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and the like. In a country like ours
when parliamentary discussion about e-commerce is ongoing, MPs proudly boast
upon their views on selling electricity being bamboozled
on the bill titled ‘vidyutiya karobar ain’, we can’t expect a good nuanced
policy that forbids the misuse of platform and promotes its use for the greater
good. We have been accustomed to black or white policy, if it works, ‘allow’;
and if it doesn’t, 'ban'. Our administration is never enthusiastic—if capable
at all, in doing thorough homework before flinging orders and decisions. This
time it has failed in diving into the platform and sorting out the bad from the
rest of the content to punish the creator or restrict troubling content.
The blanket ban—which
is, of course, arbitrary and not thoughtful—might have come from the political
leaders being involved in scandal after scandal and more so after alleged propagation of social disharmony and casteism. A new directive
on the operation of social networking is in place; hence, the document
must be serving as something called impetus to formulate laws regarding social
media regulation lest other platforms be similarly banned. Otherwise, how can
features of other apps like Facebook or Instagram reels, YouTube Shorts be
spared that bear pretty much similar algorithms and contents? If the MPs
maneuver their consolidated efforts on forming robust rules, who knows Tiktok
would be revitalized to open access—with certain qualifications—much like
Pakistan which revoked
the ban in no less than two weeks? It is unequivocal that the coming days are
sure to be filled with an environment more dependent on internet products, so,
it is better to draft the act and implement right away so that it can further
be polished on a need-basis.
Nepal government banned Tiktok on 13 November, Monday after a cabinet meeting.
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