There are good reasons to be concerned about TikTok, but it should be part of a larger conversation around privacy and surveillance capitalism.
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While it may be easy to laugh off some of the more ridiculous things spouted by our oft-out-of-touch politicians, it would be unwise to underestimate the power, impact and potential harm of their messaging.
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The government sure has asked for a lot of trust from the public recently. Australians have been asked to disregard a long history of overreach, scope creep, data breaches and abuses of power, in favour of a request to take the government on their word about the COVIDSafe App because ’this time it’s different – we promise!'
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Some of the laws that have been enacted in recent weeks in response to the coronavirus are unprecedented. It’s now unlawful to do all sorts of everyday things, like venture out in public unless for a specific, government-mandated purpose, in ways that would be astonishing to our past selves just a month ago. This has affected both our individual lives, and our sense of public space. Dozens of people were fined more than $40,000 by Victoria Police for breaching stay at home order for organising a protest calling for the release of refugees in Melbourne. The protest complied with social distancing protocols (it was conducted in cars) and sought to highlight the plight of refugees detained, who are at real risk of contracting COVID-19. Victoria is one of many jurisdictions in which the government response to the health crisis has had a decidedly authoritarian bent.
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A problem like COVID-19 is so monumental in scale and ferocity that it creates an understandable temptation to race to use any method at our disposal to prevent its spread.
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Discussions about digital privacy often evoke images of whistle-blowers, journalists, and intelligence agencies. But beyond this, it can sometimes feel as though the business model of corporate data mining presents few negative consequences in our daily lives. The omniscient machinery of state surveillance is rarely an issue visited upon us personally. Amazon, Google, and Facebook are overwhelmingly convenient, well-designed platforms that can be enjoyable to use. It is perfectly possible to worry about the surveillance state in the abstract but, at the same time, think of ourselves as having little to hide personally and, therefore, not much to worry about.
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