TikTok Being Divested or Banned Will Be Good for Theatre
OnStage Blog Editorial
As of this writing, it looks like TikTok, in its current form, may be on its way out of America, or at least on its way to being sold to a non-CCP controlled entity, based on the House of Representatives passing a bill mandating its divestment to remain available to US residents. President Biden has stated he would sign the bill if the Senate passes the legislation.
Many theatre fans are panicking because a good amount of theatre content is happening on the TikTok platform. OnStage Blog has a TikTok channel, which we mostly use to share stories and react to other theatre influencers (more on why later).
The main reason behind the bill is that ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, allegedly shares its user data with the government of China for political purposes, as mandated by Chinese law, and, according to politicians on both sides of the political aisle, presents a clear and present danger to national security.
There are some reasons to question why the government wants to implement a questionable restriction on freedom of speech with bipartisan support and not do similar questionable restrictions on other amendments, such as the 2nd amendment, when it comes to a ban on assault weapons.
Also, if TikTok can be forced to divest, why not Facebook or X, whose owners don’t have a great regard for data privacy.
But let’s stay focused and evaluate this bill on its merits.
In making our case that the theatre community will be better off with TikTok being banned or divested from current Chinese ownership, we are relying on numerous assumptions from non-partisan journalists and experts way more versed in this subject than we are that the government of China, while only listed as a 1% owner of ByteDance, regularly assets its influence on ByteDance to share its data when requested and influence the algorithm to advance its communist goals, as it does on many other companies that operate from China.
Under that assumption, we think a forced divestment or ban would be good for theatre on the following grounds:
China is hostile to free expression in theatre
The examples are numerous, but here are a couple:
China shuts power off to a Mongolian Theatre production, “The Mongol Khan,” 30 minutes before the premiere in order to foster “national unity” (when in actuality, they are really just fostering a 1200-year (when in actuality, they are really just fostering a 1200-year grudge).
China has banned (and put enormous pressure on other countries to respond similarly) the performances of Shen Yun within its borders. Shen Yun is a performing arts company founded by followers of Falun Gong, a religious group despised by the CCP for many reasons, chiefly among them its opposition to the current leadership of China.
Please tell me why theatre fans should support any platform owned and run by these guys, never mind the risk anyone runs in promoting a show that may be contrary to China’s goals.
China is hostile to LGBTQ+ Rights
America still has a ways to go to make LGBTQ+ communities feel safe in every part of the country. But the progress America has made to cement rights for them is miles ahead of where China is. China last year shut down the Beijing LGBT Center for unclear reasons, and generally views homosexuality as a bad influence, according to Darius Longarino, a senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School. Gay people do not have the right to marry or adopt in China and do not have nearly the same legal protections as they do in other parts of the world, including America.
As recently as a couple of months ago, China scrubbed a video of a trans theatre star, Jin Xing, promoting a message of inclusivity towards LGBTQ folk. They issued a statement saying Jin was: “poisoning children and destroying the traditions of marriage.”
Say what you want about Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, et al, but we are pretty certain they have no agenda against LGBTQ+ communities the way the Chinese government does.
To reiterate, user data, such as what the user watches and posts, as well as personal information such as email, birthdate, and IP address, can be (and is) sent to the government of China as dictated by Chinese law.
American theatre wouldn’t be what it is today without clear support and representation from the LGBTQ+ community. The government of China clearly disagrees, and they have the power to silence oppositional voices on TikTok.
China likely suppresses free speech on TikTok
China is not the only country that has strict rules on speech. America is allies with many of them, despite having the most lax rules on speech worldwide. Still, when it comes to TikTok, China has allegedly forced its subsidiary, ByteDance, to suppress videos on the platform relating to topics unfavorable to China, including the persecution of Uyghurs, Tibet, Tiananmen Square, Falun Gong, and more.
Free speech is a bedrock of theatre culture within the actual content of the play/musical, but also with performers like Brandon Victor Dixon directly addressing Vice President Pence after a performance of Hamilton challenging values the Trump administration espouses.
Banning free speech, especially speech rooted in rebellion and celebrating basic fundamental liberty principles, should be anathema to theatre fans and supporters.
Several other countries have already banned or partially banned TikTok.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
As we said, OnStage Blog is currently on TikTok, despite all of the above. We’re not proud of this, and we’ve had a lot of internal debate about whether we should be on the platform. We decided to be there because the amount of disinformation by inexperienced theatre content creators with many followers is too big for us to stand on the sidelines.
Just like we stayed on Twitter/X when Elon Musk purchased the company and blew up all of the free speech protections for LGBTQ folks, we decided to stay on TikTok, for starkly different free-speech reasons. Fundamentally, we believe in combating bad speech with good speech.
But when it comes to our legislators engaging in a rare act of bipartisanship to protect our data from being used by a hostile communist state to do God knows what, including probably building profiles users for potential blackmail, we feel good in stating for the record it is a good thing if Congress forces divestment or removal of the TikTok platform.
Here’s the thing: we theatre fans truly don’t need TikTok to celebrate theatre. TikTok needs us more. Theatre fans should feel good telling them:
“Support free expression in theatre and support the LGBTQ+ community, or go pound sand”