Diplomacy & Crisis News

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Young people have been paying attention to Tik Tok for a long time… lawmakers are rushing to catch up.

There are two main reasons why Tik Tok has become increasingly controversial. First, because Tik Tok’s parent company has strong ties to the Chinese government- this presents a privacy risk for Americans who wish to avoid the CCP’s prying eyes. Second, because of the threat posed by allowing a potential foreign adversary influence over the content viewed by young Americans.

In truth, these matters are only made acute due to long-standing shortcomings in American policy regarding privacy and civic education. American lawmakers have the ability to put to bed the most pressing issues posed by Tik Tok by passing regulation addressing the upstream causes rather than the downstream consequences.

Yes, Tik Tok does violate the privacy of its users in a way that goes beyond the “new normal” established by Facebook’s and Google’s privacy agreements. Not long ago, it was revealed that Tik Tok had access to users “front facing cameras”. The data collected through the front-facing camera, reportedly, was being used to further hone the app’s algorithm. Additionally, there is ample evidence that the sort of content directed towards Chinese youth is of a seriously different nature than the content that is generated for young Americans. While young Chinese netizens are shown a regular stream of athletic and scientific accomplishments, young Americans are presented with, in the best case scenario, dance trends and practical jokes.

Only by looking at the issue directly can policymakers determine how to apply the scalpel rather than scissors.

Legislators might begin by protecting citizen’s online privacy a priori- in a way that has nothing to do with Tik Tok specifically. For example, policy makers might follow the guidelines put in place in parts of the EU, ensuring that Americans own the trackable data they produce online. 

Such a policy would –ban– Tik Tok in a way that has nothing to do with China in particular, but instead focuses on protecting the rights of American citizens.

In this way, Americans will not only be protected from the risk posed by Tik Tok, but also by the same security risks that will come from the next hip app that originates from an untrustworthy source.

In the same sort of way, Americans would be better protected from misinformation, on Tik Tok or elsewhere, through improved civic education rather than through state action. This is especially true when the forced sale of Tik Tok could, in the lowest light, be understood as censorship disguised as industrial policy. Even for those with less confidence in the wisdom of the average American citizen, surely there is a more Liberal way to address the threat posed by propaganda than simply prohibiting the material. After all, each of us has the opportunity to promote civic wellbeing through having healthy, well moderated, conversations about political issues with our friends and colleagues both young and old.

These hypothetical measures promoting privacy and civic education should be strictly enforced, and if Tik Tok, or other similar apps, violate these terms, consequences ought go beyond a simple fine.

Forcing the sale of Tik Tok is something like Sun Tzu’s “the worst is to storm a walled city”- it is the clumsiest and costliest way of addressing an important problem. Instead, legislators should look to more elegant solutions- guaranteeing the privacy rights of all Americans through appropriate legislation, and promoting civil wellbeing both through their own example and through promoting civic education in public spaces like schools and libraries. Perhaps if our educational system focused more on reading, writing and arithmetic with a bit of civic learning thrown in, this issue might be self correcting. 

Parents and friends have a similar role to play- even if legislators fail to act, we have a social obligation to steer our fellows away from platforms that waste their time and pollute their intelligence.

In a healthy society, legislators would pass laws protecting the common rights of citizens, and citizens would make the most of those rights by educating themselves and participating in political life. Some might say that we do not live in such a society, and that as a consequence, the best option is to address the problem of insecurity and disinformation with a blunt legislative instrument.

Fine, it might be better to apply the blunt instrument than to suffer Tik Tok’s continued use. Taking this route, however, moves the United States further away from its foundational Liberal values and makes a passive concession to Autocratic regimes that might look to censor American media. My proposed policy approach will take time and might be somewhat aspirational. Unfortunately, this leaves policy makers with a difficult choice between civil liberties and continuing today’s unfortunate state of affairs.

Even as I have personal confidence in the intelligence of the average American, the evidence suggests that high profile officials in American media lack that same belief. Whether it comes in the form of NBC’s hiring and quick firing of Ronna McDaniel, or Elon Musk’s decision to can Don Lemon’s show on X, it is not obvious the powers that be have an appreciation for a more challenging Socratic discussion.  This sort of self-censorship is, in the clear majority of cases, a self-inflicted wound. To propose that sunlight is an insufficient disinfectant is to suggest that the audience is to stupid to know Good from Bad.

Many suggest that Tik Tok’s focus on short form content is one of the app’s most dangerous features. American policy makers need to avoid this same trap. Tik Tok poses a serious problem, only by taking out the roots with precise public policy can the problem be solved over the long term.  Maybe it is time to relook at our foundation before we attempt to solve the problem top-down.  

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Peter Scaturro is the Director of Studies at the Foreign Policy Association

Russia’s extreme demands—and Ukraine’s desire to survive—make negotiations unlikely.

What the West gets wrong about the rest.

Many in the United States and Europe hold a favorable view of Armenia, even though the country possesses a rape culture that delegitimizes victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.  A 2016 report led by the United Nations for Population Fund Armenia (UNFPA) reported that 36 percent of the respondents in Armenia believe that women should tolerate violence for the sake of family unity. Within those 36 percent, 45 percent were men and 28 percent women.

Guidelines published by the British government warned their citizens that if they are raped in Armenia, “Reporting crimes to the police in Armenia can be a complex and time consuming process. Local officers may not have specific training in supporting victims of sexual assault. You may find the process of reporting the assault at times difficult, and quite different from what you would expect of UK police proceedings.”

They continued, “Rape and sexual assault are both criminal offences in Armenia, but conviction rates remain low, and judicial proceedings are likely to take a long time. It is very likely that victims will be asked to testify in front of third parties, and there is no legislation to punish those violating the confidentiality of a victim.”

Amnesty International proclaimed, “Armenia is the only country among its Council of Europe neighbors without legislation criminalizing domestic violence.”  According to a recent report put out by Human Rights Watch, Armenia has still not ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence due to “misinformation campaigns in previous years claiming that the convention threatens traditional and family values.”

Meanwhile, presently, “there are only two domestic violence shelters.  Both are in Yerevan and are run by a non-governmental organization.  The new criminal code identifies domestic violence as an aggravating circumstance in a number of crimes, but domestic violence is not a stand alone criminal offense.”

Human Rights Watch noted, “Domestic violence cases remain largely underreported. A 2021 survey in Armenia showed that almost 36 percent of women interviewed who were ever in a partnership experienced at least one form of physical, sexual, or psychological violence by a current or former intimate partners; only 5 percent of those who experienced physical or sexual violence by a partner sought help from police and only 4.8 percent sought help from a health provider.”  

Ani Jilosian of the Women’s Support Center in Yerevan claimed in a podcast titled “against shame culture” that many victims of domestic violence and other forms of sexual violence in Armenia are “forced to undergo” virginity tests.  She continued: “We know that virginity testing is not only unethical but it is also unscientific.  In Armenia as well as in other countries where it is not banned, it is used in cases of rape and child sexual abuse.   The practice is painful, humiliating.   It can also be traumatic for victims.  These are typically practiced in order to ascertain if violence took place.”

This practice takes place in Armenia, even though a 2012 study by the Forensic Science International Journal found that 90% of child rape victims do not suffer from physical damage after experiencing sexual abuse.  

Jilosian noted that there are other reasons why virginity tests are performed in Armenia, which are more sinister: “It might be required by the family of the husband upon marriage.  It happens less now, but it still happens from time to time.  This is to determine if a woman is a virgin upon marriage.”  She also claimed that in Armenia some girls undergo “hymen restoration surgery” in order to fool such tests.

The Armenian Parliament has passed its first reading on a bill that would ban virginity testing as a form of violence in Armenia, but Jilosian noted that it took a long time for the Armenian government to act on this “for it was not on the agenda to ban this practice for it was not a concern that has been raised, even though civil society members have been raising it for some time.   This bill underlines and better defines the types of violence that victims face.”  

Nevertheless, the ban on virginity tests has still not been engrained into law and the bill faced stiff opposition in the Armenian Parliament in its first reading due to the opposition of some to including members of the LGBT community in a law protecting them from domestic violence.   

 

By Rachel Avraham

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