#103 The Clock is Tikking: Exploring the Addictiveness of TikTok’s Algorithm
Today, Rohan Pai talks about the addictiveness of Tiktok’s algorithm and the legal repercussions the corporation is facing for the same. Lokendra Sharma follows with an analysis of the UN Summit of the Future, which was held in New York last month. Lastly, we provide some readings to help understand supply chain security on a deeper level.
Technopolitik: The endless Tiktok spiral
— Rohan Pai
Earlier last week, the social media giant TikTok was hit with a spate of lawsuits drafted by a powerful bipartisan coalition of 14 lawyers, including even the Attorney Generals of New York and California. Rather than facing flak for alleged security risks that it may have posed to the government, which was ultimately the reason behind its ban in India, TikTok was accused of negatively impacting the mental health of its underage users.
The lawsuits, more specifically, draw attention to the app’s unique algorithm that incorporates features like curated feeds, push notifications and the ever-notorious ‘infinite scroll’. In light of these transgressions, the attorneys demanded that the ByteDance app surrender any profits it acquired as a result of advertising targeted towards anyone under the age of 18.
Before delving further into the court case in question, we must peel back the layers of TikTok’s addictive algorithm. Employing the Octalysis framework of ‘gamification’, which analyses the persuasive strategies such as scarcity, unpredictability and accomplishment that services often utilise to alter the behaviour patterns of their customers, it becomes apparent that TikTok ticks a number of these boxes.
The infinite scroll, for example, traps users in a deadlock of unpredictability because the algorithm is always ready with new media content that never runs out. Psychologists have compared the dopamine rush that comes about as a result of scrolling as similar to what gamblers experience whilst using a casino slot machine.
What also separates TikTok from its video-sharing predecessors like YouTube and Vimeo, is its proliferation in the arena of short-form content. The highest-viewed TikTok content usually falls within the range of 21 and 34 seconds, which signals to users that they need not carve out a significant chunk of their day to derive entertainment from the app. However, it is this flawed thought process that, oddly enough, increases engagement and time spent on scrolling.
Far from being merely speculative, TikTok’s ‘For You’ page has been demonstrated to encourage suicidal tendencies in its users, as per research published by Amnesty International. While it may be argued that the app’s personalised feed was originally intended to improve the user experience and generate more content according to one’s interests, this takes a dark turn when the user has unhealthy thoughts that may be conscious or subconscious.
Of course, there are critics of this view, like board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Sasha Amdani, who uses the platform regularly to educate her followers on mental health. She believes that short-form content enables complicated, often taboo, topics like ADHD to reach a far wider audience, which, in turn, destigmatises them in modern-day society.
In TikTok’s defence, has rolled out several features over the years aimed at protecting its underage users and reducing screen time on the app. For instance, family pairing gives parents control over the nature of content fed to their child’s TikTok feed and set time limits. Unfortunately, it has proven easy for teens to bypass these controls and create new accounts without the restrictions. TikTok also issues an alert to all users under 18 after the app has been used for 60 minutes, but this can be dodged with a simple passcode and is far from effective in the long run.
At the end of the day, the question that needs to be pondered head-on is whether TikTok must take legal responsibility for the repercussions of what is, after all, a voluntary service that users can opt out of at their convenience. Should the Chinese app continue to have a presence within the sovereignty of the United States, or meet the same fate as India and lose its burgeoning 120 million user base is up to the courts now and remains to be witnessed.
Technomachy: Insights from the UN Summit of the Future
— Lokendra Sharma
On 22-23 September 2024, the much anticipated UN Summit of the Future was held in New York. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres had called for the organisation of the Summit of the Future in his 2021 oft-quoted ‘Our Common Agenda’ report.
After nine months of negotiations, the flagship outcome, ‘Pact of the Future’ was adopted at the Summit. Annexed to the Pact of the Future were two further outcomes — the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations. The Pact was adopted without a vote in the General Assembly but not without contestation. Russia introduced a last-minute draft amendment to the Pact, but this was defeated when the Republic of the Congo’s motion that no action be taken on the amendment was adopted by a vote of 143-7 with 15 abstentions. Belarus, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, Nicaragua, the Russian Federation, Sudan, and Syria were the seven states that opposed the motion.
Touted as a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity,’ the Pact has reaffirmed the commitment of states to multilateralism and ‘an international system with the United Nations at its center.’ This is significant not because it says something very new but because it comes at a time of global upheaval — from Israel’s many wars in West Asia to the Russia-Ukraine war further north, from US-China tech decoupling to lack of progress on mitigating climate change. The Pact has 56 action items divided thematically into five sections: sustainable development and financing for development; international peace and security; science, technology and innovation and digital cooperation; youth and future generations, transforming global governance.
While some of the action items, such as on security council reform, development financing, disarmament and the International Court of Justice, have some significance in contemporary times, one key takeaway from a tech perspective is the Global Digital Compact (GDC). The GDC ‘is the first comprehensive global framework for digital cooperation.’ The GDC commits to principles and approaches such as digital public goods/infrastructure, as well as open-source data/models/standards. There is also a section on AI governance that commits to establishing the International Scientific Panel on AI and Global Dialogue on AI Governance within the UN umbrella.
One of the most sought-after parts of the Global Digital Compact, however, has been on internet governance. There was apprehension in the global Internet governance community as to how the adoption of the Global Digital Compact would impact the multistakeholder principle and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The GDC put all the apprehensions to rest when it committed to ‘[s]upport the Internet Governance Forum, including through continued efforts to increase diverse participation from Governments and other stakeholders from developing countries and the provision of voluntary funding also to this end.’ One area where the GDC could have done more is on internet shutdowns, which is mentioned just once when states commit to merely ‘[r]efrain from Internet shutdowns and measures that target Internet access.’ This is particularly worrying when set against the background of 283 shutdowns in 39 countries in 2023.
If you like the newsletter, you will love to read our in-depth research and analysis at https://takshashila.org.in/high-tech-geopolitics.
Demystifying Supply Chain Security
The recent US proposal to ban Chinese-connected car tech and Israel’s attack in Lebanon that exploded pagers and walkie-talkies has brought the focus back to global supply chains — but from a security angle. If even low-tech products could be compromised, what happens to high-tech products, which are much more embedded in global cyberspace and have complex (and lengthy) supply chains? While it is relatively easy for economists to provide solutions on how supply chains can be made efficient and experts in geoeconomics to advise on steps for making supply chains resilient, geopolitical or security experts are finding it difficult to answer how complex supply chains could be made secure.
To understand supply chain security, it therefore becomes pertinent to ground oneself in the basics of this hot subject. We recommend the following book chapter as an essential reading:
Collier, Z.A., & Thekdi, S.A. (2024). Supply Chain Security. In: Sarkis, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Supply Chain Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19884-7_30
This book chapter by Collier and Thekdi is part of the Palgrave Handbook of Supply Chain Management and provides an excellent overall introduction to the subject of supply chain security. The chapter has three major parts. In the first part, the authors explore existing definitions of supply chain security and risks and associated terms such as cyber-physical systems and supply chain attacks. A key definition that they cite is from a 2004 report by the IBM Center for the Business of Government (authored by David J. Closs and Edmund F. McGarrell).
In the second part, the authors identify key areas of concern in supply chain security, such as data and privacy requirements, physical safety, management of operational disruptions, vendor risk management, and product integrity. They also discuss supply chain security concerns around AI and automation. In the last part, the authors discuss the application of zero-trust principles and blockchain technology for supply chain security.
They also ‘provide managerial recommendations’ such as adopting ISO 31000 ‘for managing risk and ensuring a secure supply chain.’
In addition to the book chapter above, the following journal articles can be consulted:
For a thorough understanding of supply chain security in the software domain, check Reichert, B. M., & Obelheiro, R. R. (2024). Software supply chain security: a systematic literature review. International Journal of Computers and Applications, 46(10), 853–867. https://doi.org/10.1080/1206212X.2024.2390978
For an overview on security and geopolitical aspects impacting the semiconductor supply chain, read: Wei Xiong, David D. Wu & Jeff H. Y. Yeung (13 Aug 2024): Semiconductor supply chain resilience and disruption: insights, mitigation, and future directions, International Journal of Production Research, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2024.2387074 (open access).