World Politics Review includes Socolow’s TikTok piece in ‘Top Reads on China’ roundup
World Politics Review listed Michael Socolow’s “The Trouble with TikTok” piece in its “Top Reads on China” roundup. WPR newsletter and engagement editor Benjamin Wilhelm wrote that Socolow, a University of Maine associate professor of communication and journalism, took American journalists to task for their uncritical coverage of TikTok — and for their use of the app. Wilhelm posted this part of Socolow’s piece that Politico Magazine published Nov. 2: “Journalists should not be promoting a platform with a documented history of political censorship. Nor should journalists use TikTok as a news medium, because TikTok — unlike other attempts to extend authoritarian media globally, such as RT (Russia Today) — relies on its users’ ignorance of its origins and practices. How many teens, or journalists, are aware TikTok’s Chinese parent company, Bytedance, paid what was at the time the largest fine in Federal Trade Commission history for invading the privacy of underage users?”