Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Bob Seely, said this week that he felt that unless the algorithms were changed, TikTok should be banned in the UK.
The revelation was aired on Tuesday (26th Mar 2024) when Mr Seely was invited onto The News Agents podcast, which is hosted by Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, had claimed China was behind attempts to access details of MPs critical of Beijing. There were then calls for the county to be placed on an ‘enhanced list’ and come under increased scrutiny.
MP called for comment
That was the cue for Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Bob Seely, who sits on the Commons Select Committee for Foreign Affairs, to be called for comment.
Mr Seely has spoken at length about China and Hong Kong, often being criticised by his constituents as having more interest in those countries than what happens on the Island.
During his interview on The News Agents, Mr Seely said he felt that the UK would see China “more as a threat than a partner”.
TikTok should be banned in the UK
When asked whether he thought the UK should be banning the social media platform TikTok, he replied,
“Potentially yeah. There are two issues with TikTok, both of them are concerns.
“One of them is about information flow going back to China and there are lots of reasons China wants Western information, but effectively data and information now and in the future is power, and we just need to remember that. People are wondering why China wants our information.
“But secondly, if you look at the algorithm in TikTok, there is an algorithm used inside China which encourages Chinese kids to be smart, to do puzzles, etc and there is an algorithm outside China which is encouraging people to use TikTok.
“So, effectively TikTok’s algorithms inside China encourage Chinese kids to be smart, TikTok’s algorithms outside China are encouraging everyone’s else’s kids to be dumb.”
He went on to say that China should be told to have one algorithm for inside and outside China, and “no information flow for this stuff back to China”, or TikTok should be banned in the UK.
Support for US stance
Earlier in the month, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban TikTok. Bob Seely said he supported much of what the Americans are doing,
“Because I think they are wise and are ahead of Europe and UK on this as well.”
Listen to The News Agents podcast in full (you will need to create a free account with Global Player).
You can read more detail about the claims made by Oliver Dowden on the BBC website.
