Original: Gu Ziming This article is authorized to be reproduced on WeChat official account: Political Affairs Hall Plus2019
On February 27, the White House issued a notice requiring government agencies to uninstall TikTok application software in federal equipment and systems within 30 days, on the grounds of “protecting the security of American data”.
On the same day, the Canadian government announced that the use of TikTok by government equipment would be banned from the 28th for the same reason.
Subsequently, the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament and the three major European organizations have announced the prohibition of employees from using TikTok for the same reason.
Later, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshi Matano also announced that government employees should not use TikTok when using public terminals for processing confidential information.
One day, the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan, the four major western economies, announced the ban on Tik Tok at the same time, as if returning to the Communist Manifesto written by Marx more than 100 years ago:
“In order to carry out a holy encirclement and suppression of this ghost, all forces in old Europe, including the Pope and the Czar, Metternich and Gizo, the French radicals and the German police, have joined forces”.
The fear of the “old forces” is not without reason.
Every revolutionary change in knowledge and communication technology in history will cause a major reshuffle of the regime structure and a major change that has not occurred in a century.
The emergence of bamboo slips broke the monopoly of power and knowledge of the witch doctor class in the Shang Dynasty, which controlled the oracle bones, so that knowledge could be copied and spread. Therefore, the social structure also changed. The royal family of Zhou could let the royal children drive with knowledge to open up and expand the wilderness. With the management ability inherited from the bamboo slips, the Shiqing Shilu system and the well-field system were formed.
The emergence of paper-making technology broke the monopoly of a few nobles on knowledge and allowed the wealth to accumulate to a certain extent in a large family, which can replicate talents on a large scale. Take the Runan Yuan family of the fourth generation and the third duke as the representative, and the three brothers of Sancao, Zhuge, Xunzi Balong, and Sima Bada as the representatives. Their management ability became stronger and stronger, and gradually formed the patriarchal system and manor system since the Wei and Jin dynasties.
The emergence of printing technology has further reduced the cost and scope of knowledge dissemination, so that the children of ordinary landlords can receive systematic Confucian teaching, and the inheritance of power is no longer restricted to the marriage with the royal blood or warlords. The same class of landlords, scholars and bureaucrats of the same year, with the attitude of managing the country’s civil government, has stepped onto the stage of history.
After the industrial revolution, with the emergence of newspapers, radio, television and the Internet that can spread nationwide, it is easier to obtain knowledge, and the scope of knowledge can influence has also been unprecedented expanded. The party and league politics based on the common political concept has also risen, and the political parties that control the media power have also become the actual owners of power.
Throughout history, every progress in communication technology will transfer knowledge and culture to the next class with a larger base, thus creating a regime organization form with higher management efficiency, wider coverage and stronger control, and completely overthrowing the organizational structure of the previous generation.
This is one of the reasons why Western powers are so afraid of TikTok.
After all, the last generation of Party and Youth League organizations has reached the limit down to companies and communities, and it is difficult to track down every grass-roots party member.
The next generation of TikTok can label every user in a very detailed way, deeply understand their inner demands and influence their judgments.
Therefore, with the power of tiktok, they can not only inject various kinds of thought stamps into different users through the information flow, but also gain insight into the secrets that many power holders themselves cannot perceive.
In the past, only a few model plays of Yang Bailao and Huang Shiren can be made to mobilize the public’s emotions. In the future, they can provide tens of thousands of video content in different languages and styles for groups with different labels, and send them to audiences of different levels rhythmically, and finally form a strong resonance.
Once this power is used, it will quickly start a prairie fire and change the western political system.
This round of cultural upheaval brought about by tiktok happened to meet with the upheaval of productivity.
The algorithm and computing power of OPENAI will form a dreamlike linkage with TikTok’s data and content. The double upgrading of productivity and culture, two different branches, will deeply affect the old forces and subvert industrial institutions, far beyond our imagination.
Therefore, whether it is Microsoft or Oracle, these American enterprises with strong AI computing power and the forces behind them will not sit and watch someone sleeping on the side of the couch. TikTok and his data must be included in the bag to fully integrate productivity and cultural power.
In the past year, from the federal government to the White House, a series of crackdowns and restrictions have been carried out to create a banner of political correctness in order to plunder tiktok at a low cost.
While the western powers collectively participated in the encirclement and suppression of TikTok, they were not only cooperating with the United States, but also playing with the United States and China by virtue of the privacy and security banner held high by the United States, taking advantage of the situation to take the localized part of this sharp weapon into account, and striving for more share in the global market through the mixed transformation of TikTok.