Schweizer, a Breitbart News senior contributor and the President of the Government Accountability Institute, notes that “despite its links to the Chinese propaganda apparatus, TikTok has thrived with the help of American celebrities and thought leaders who are either ignorant or ambivalent about TikTok’s true nature.”.
TikTok is run by the company ByteDance, which is “wedded to the Chinese Communist Party military-intelligence-industrial complex,” he writes.
While the app has “penetrated the heart of America’s culture, becoming a central part of the lives of our children and young adults,” the Chinese government does not permit the app for its own population.
Instead, the CCP harnesses the app’s addictive quality to target and shape the minds of young Americans for its own purposes, all while designating TikTok’s powerful algorithm as a top secret “national security asset.”
The first celebrity to promote TikTok was the late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon, according toBlood Money.
“There’s a really cool app I’ve been getting into lately called TikTok,” Fallon told millions of Americans watching his show. “Do you guys know that?”
“If you don’t have it, download it,” he instructed.
Schweizer continues, noting other celebrities who promoted the CCP-linked app:
“Celebrities weren’t alone. Major American institutions jumped in to work with TikTok. In 2019, for example, the NFL announced a multiyear content partnership with TikTok,” Schweizer adds. “One wonders what conversations were had besides ‘Show me the money!’ As we will see, politicians also lined up to use it.”
In one of the restricted military journals detailed inBlood Money, Colonel Dai Xu, a professor at China’s top military academy, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) National Defense University (PLA-NDU), wrote that the real battle between the United States and China is “information-driven mental warfare” and compared apps such as TikTok and social media platforms to a “modern day Trojan Horse” for pro-CCP propaganda and values.
Another leading Chinese PLA strategist, Zeng Huafeng of the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), wrote of a cognitive, or mind, war on the United States, and proposed how to defeat the U.S. without firing a shot.
Schweizer writes:
Zeng further argued that Beijing can win “mind superiority” through several means, including:
“The ultimate goal is to manipulate a country’s values and achieve strategic goals without an actual overt military battle,” Zeng added.
Strategists cited in Chinese Disinformation Efforts on Social Media advocated for “subconscious messaging” instead of overtly political propaganda, and using a soft touch to influence young people in the West.
Schweizer also cites “Communicating Our Military’s Advanced Military Culture to the World” by Xu Sen, which states:
CCP strategists in an “Analysis of Modern Network Media Warfare in the Perspective of Intelligent Technology” added that propaganda is most effective when it can be directed to “impressible persons” through entertainment.
“Entertainment is the main motivation for Generation Z content consumption,” said Peng Zhen- gang, the deputy director of the Propaganda Department, in “Research on International Communication Strategies and Practice Paths of Generation Z.” By better understanding those they mean to propagandize, the CCP can “explore effective communication strategies and paths, [and] improve the ability to set agendas.”
Chinese psychological warfare specialists also have a special interest in “borrowing mouths to speak” to young Americans, Schweizer writes:
“The evidence is clear: Chinese psychological warfare strategists have Americans, particularly young Americans, in their crosshairs,” he continues.
“They believe that not only are young people easier to influence but the effects of the propaganda messaging are longer lasting. The Chinese government is devoting serious amounts of resources to understanding how to manipulate young users. The Communist government recently opened an external propaganda office to target Generation Z audiences overseas.”
Schweizer notes that American politicians also lined up to use the app. In fact, just this month, President Joe Biden’s campaign opened an account on TikTok in an effort to reach young voters.
