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How to stop Facebook and Instagram using your posts for AI

2 June 2024

Meta are allowing Facebook and Instagram users to opt out of their posts and content being used for generative AI training. For content creators it’s their own hard work, for individuals it may be their private photos, but you can see why you’d want to stop them being able to do so.

It’s not the easiest process it could be, but it is pretty straightforward for those based in the UK and EU – and you need to act before 26 June. I explain how below.

How to opt out of Facebook and Instagram using your posts for AI

You may have received an email like the one below, or a notification in your app, for your Facebook or Instagram accounts.

You can tap or click on ‘right to object’ to start the process to stop them using your content for AI training.

If you haven’t received this email and want to try to appeal against it, try this link.

I have found that for one account, I’ve not received any notification, by app or email, and when I tried going directly to the appeals page, I wasn’t allowed to access it.

How to explain why you want to stop Meta using your posts Facebook for AI

You should see a page called ‘Object to your information being used for AI at Meta’.

Select your country and enter the email associated with your account – you have to repeat this process for each individual account, unfortunately.

The section ‘please tell us how this processing impacts you’ may feel overwhelming, but I’ve tested different approaches with my personal and professional accounts.

I found that both these worked for me:

I am a content creator and put a great deal of original research and time and effort into my work and retain copyright for this. I object for it being used without payment.

These are my personal photos and information behind a private account that I do not want to be used publicly.

Although Meta warns, “We’ll review objection requests in accordance with relevant data protection laws. If your request is honored, it will be applied going forward”, I’ve not had a request turned down for the UK.

But that’s not it: Meta will send a code to your email associated with your account to complete the process – this comes through quickly, though.

How do I know if Meta won’t use my Facebook and Instagram photos and posts for its AI training?

The good news, you don’t have to wait for long. In all the times I used it, confirmation that my request had been approved came through within 20 minutes.

How to stop Facebook and Instagram using your posts for AI training: Meta email approving my request

How can I stop Meta using my data for AI training if I don’t live in the UK or EU?

PCWorld has reported on a potential solution: a Meta help center page where you can submit a request to access, delete, or file a complaint about personal information “from third parties being used to develop and improve AI at Meta”: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/510058597920541

How to stop Facebook and Instagram from seeing data shared by sites about your online activity

But you may want to go further while you’re at it, and stop specific sites from sharing data with Meta about your online activity.

Mashable highlighted this page called ‘Off Facebook activity’ , where you can choose to disconnect specific sites that share data with Meta, clear previous activity, and manage future data sharing.

Off Facebook activity page to stop sites sharing information about you with Meta

It’s not clear how much this would stop this data being used for AI training, but Meta does state that “information shared on Meta’s Products and services” could be used.

Users are getting more protective about how their data is used

With generative AI needing ever more content to feed its development, and a rise in more privacy-aware users, I think we will see an increase in people becoming more selective about how they share their personal data, and especially their content.

It is good that Meta is being clear about giving users an opt-out to have their posts not used for gen AI training, as many sites may have not made their users aware before. But I’m not sure what the opt outs are for business pages.

If you use LinkedIn, you may want to read about how to stop it using your expertise for free with its AI feature.

Why the Conservatives and Labour are using TikTok differently

28 May 2024

It’s like buses: you wait for one major UK political party to join TikTok, and then two come along on the very same weekend… Must be an election! But the Conservatives and Labour are taking very different approaches to how to use the platform.

Let me guide you through the tale of two TikToks.

Why have Labour and the Conservatives suddenly joined TikTok?

Despite the growing popularity of TikTok, and its use by some Cabinet ministers such as Matt Hancock and Grant Shapps, both parties had appeared hesitant to adopt it, due to the perceived concerns over the security threat from China. The US have now passed a law to ban the app unless it’s sold by its Chinese owners – a move that ByteDance is now contesting in American courts.

TikTok has continued to maintain that it is independent of Beijing and ByteDance insists it has no plans to sell the business.

Ciaran Martin, the former GCHQ cyber chief and ex-head of the National Cyber Security Centre, recently told the BBC’s Media Show that:

“This is mostly an issue both about geopolitics, and influence and control over the internet, than strictly speaking a cybersecurity issue”

But there are overwhelmingly compelling reasons to establish a presence on there.

In a relatively short space of time, TikTok has established itself as one of the most used social media apps among UK adults, according to Ofcom’s Online Nation report – and I wouldn’t be surprised if it soon overtakes Twitter/X.

TikTok is the most popular video platform for 15-24 year olds, who use it for an average of 58 minutes a day, according to Ofcom figures from last year, while the demographic of users is getting increasingly older.

And another Ofcom study suggests as many as 1 in 10 of us use TikTok as a news source – more so than BBC Radio 1 and Channel 5.

And despite signing a law to ban it, Team Biden launched their reelction campaign account in January, with a SuperBowl-themed Q&A.

@bidenhqlol hey guys♬ Fox nfl theme – Notrandompostsguy

You may remember that No10 enjoyed some good success during what felt like a recent peak of TikTok, during the start of the war in Ukraine.

And my 4 year old enjoyed seeing Bluey, Bingo and Boris today:

@10downingstreet What do #peppapig, bluey and bingo have in common? #uk #australia #fyp ♬ original sound – 10 Downing Street

But that account hasn’t posted since Liz Truss took over as PM and the app was then banned on government devices, though the UK government has been working with TikTok influencers and content creators behind the scenes.

Let’s hope that both parties using it means departments can get on there (with a thought-through strategy, of course.)

Why Labour are getting plaudits for their use of TikTok

Labour has over 80,000 followers on TikTok in the space of a month. The key to their most watched content has been to lean into memes and TikTok trends, mainly poking fun at Rishi Sunak and the Tories’ new policy of national service for 18 year olds.

@uklabour Surprise surprise #generalelection #toriesout #ukelection #ukpolitics ♬ original sound – UKLabour

Judging by the most popular comments to the videos, this approach has struck a chord with younger users, and it has even drawn praise from GB News deputy political editor Tom Harwood

But we’ve seen Labour ‘win’ Twitter in the last few campaigns as far back as 2015 – but that’s not resulted in being in power.

Engaging and motivating your supporters is important, but just one part of a campaign.

The TikTok trick for Labour is finding a way to blend in positive messaging about their policies, land key messages consistently, and establish Keir Starmer as a credible PM to undecided or wavering voters, in an engaging way.

But people love the banter, less so the blah content.

On their other videos, they haven’t quite replicated the success of their viral content criticising their opponents – but there’s still a long way to go in the election.

The Tories’ approach to TikTok

It may have been a case of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. And I’m sure it’s a topic that CCHQ, like Labour, have been thinking about for a long time.

But TikTok isn’t the “young person’s app” anymore. Like every social media platform, it tends to be initially adopted by younger people, before older demographics join as it becomes more mainstream. For example, I have seen my personal TikToks about the death of Dennis Waterman and 40 years since Knight Rider began do well, with lots of comments sharing their memories of both.

And today, the New York Times reported internal analysis from within TikTok that found nearly twice as many posts in favour of Donald Trump than those in support of Joe Biden, since November: 1.29 million pro-Trump posts, compared to 651,000 pro-Biden posts.

Would I have launched with the National Service policy? Probably not.

But it got people talking about the Tories’ new TikTok account – and what matters most in algorithmically-driven social feeds is people viewing and engaging with what you post. Like it or hate it, it’s seen as engagement and TikTok will therefore show you more of it.

@ukconservatives This will change lives #nationalservice #generalelection #uk #rishisunak ♬ original sound – Conservatives

The Tories are also boosting engagement by producing videos of Sunak replying to comments.

Their TikToks so far have tended to feel more “traditional” in feel – like a vertical snip of TV, to be more watchable to an older audience.

It appears to be in keeping with the apparent messaging around the Tory leader – playing it straighter, “a sensible man with a plan” vibes – as an attempt to avoid losing votes to Labour and Reform from different sets of people.

The digital gurus behind the Conservatives’ 2019 success were Topham Guerin. They took a dramatically different approach on TikTok with New Zealand’s National leader, Chris Luxon, who sought to disrupt social feeds and capture attention as the change candidate, as they detail in this article.

@christopherluxonmp Morning skincare routine with a focus on rebuilding the economy and restoring law and order🧴#fyp #nz #skincareroutine ♬ Aesthetic – Tollan Kim

The Sunak approach reminds me of Tony Blair’s ‘S&M strategy’ of 2005 in trying to show that you’re listening to voters, while directly reaching the public without the filter of the media.

So is Labour winning the election campaign on TikTok?

Screenshot

On crude numbers, Labour is ahead. But the Reform Party is ahead of both, with an earlier and slow and steady approach, building 120,000+ followers. And Matt Hancock has double that, although he’s not posted since March.

But social media has changed. It’s not about followers anymore for many platforms – not just TikTok. It’s about the engagement rate – and the engagement from the audience you want. It’s the hidden metrics from public view that are poured over by very clever social analysts at both parties.

So what is the key to winning on TikTok?

I’ve been testing a range of content on TikTok for a few years – from government case studies and PM statements to Eurovision and ‘on this day in wrestling history’.

And despite the hype, you don’t need to produce slick, highly-produced vertical videos to go viral. Simple and emotive can be very effective.

From my experience, to find and engage the right audiences, your videos need to:

Be new or informative
Be visually appealing, either in the title caption, or the first few seconds of the video
Generate an emotional reaction: good or bad, funny or sad – make users feel something
Feel relatable or sharing a common interest or passion of the user
Feel sharable – that the viewer wants to send the link to WhatsApp, or feel driven to reply, or like
Ensure that when featuring people, be it leaders or the public, they appear genuine and authentic

YouTube and WhatsApp are more important than TikTok

It’s not ‘the TikTok election’, no matter what pundits claim. We live in a time where there is far too much content for us to consume, in a fragmented, competitive and ever-changing media landscape.

The above graphic from a recent study by Charlesbye, shows that campaign communications require a sophisticated targeted approach. It’s more than Mondeo Man and Meta ads.

As the earlier table showed, YouTube is now the most popular social or digital media platform among UK adults, having overtaken Facebook. And TV is still the biggest source of news.

But keep an eye on WhatsApp – the top app most used by UK adults – especially the new-ish feature of WhatsApp Channels.

Both Labour and the Tories are using the new Channels feature to directly engage with supporters, hoping that their posts will be shared with friends and family.

The Keir Starmer channel has 9,000 followers but Rishi Sunak is well ahead on 29,000. Both have only really been active around the local elections earlier this month.

The opposition leader’s one reads more like a series of tweets, while the PM has more of a personal touch, such as him taking a picture of himself holding a trophy, but neither appear to be the kind of content you’d forward onto a mate. I would have thought they may have tried one of their TikToks, posted natively on there, But expect to see more sharable content as policies get unveiled.

The digital campaign in this 2024 general election will be bigger than ever

Digital and social media will likely be the most important its ever been in Labour and the Tories’ campaigns, with the ability to target messaging at specific groups of voters online. We’ve already seen huge sums spent on digital advertising, and we’re only in week one.

It won’t be TikTok Wot Won It, but it could play a valuable role in both parties’ strategic communications aims to win the general election.

Update: I chatted with Sean on Sky News on Thursday to discuss the importance of TikTok in the Genera Election campaign:

Google cracks down on affiliate marketing and voucher code pages

7 May 2024

Google’s recent core algorithmic changes have had a jaw-dropping impact on the rankings of some famous sites that use affiliate marketing – and now they’re manually going after news publishers’ voucher code pages too.

Google’s algorithm changes on site’s affiliate marketing pages

This list, compiled by SEO guru Lily Ray, is shocking. Some of the names at the top you may not recognise in the UK, but there are familiar names: Hello magazine has lost 79% of its search traffic, NME.com is down 73%, GQ is 70%.

Lily does point out this data from Sistrix only includes the top organic links – not Top Stories, News or Discover.

And according to Press Gazette analysis, some news brands have benefitted from the changes, especially the i.

But search referral traffic could be soon further impacted by SGE – Search Generative Experience – which is generative AI-driven search results displayed on the page. But the results so far have been hit and miss – and even dangerous.

Why is Google targeting the search ranking of affiliate marketing and voucher code pages?

Affiliate marketing is where there are links, often in product reviews, where the publisher gets a fee if you go on to purchase it. Some sites may highly rate a product because they are incentivised to do so.

And Google did warn that it was cracking down on ‘site reputation abuse’ or ‘spam’, such as where news publishers host low-quality, unchecked content from third parties to benefit from their ranking power – like voucher codes and affiliate reviews. This is not the same as syndicated news content, forums or native advertising with close involvement with host sites.

Google has indicated this downranking is being done manually at the moment – more sites will be impacted by the algorithmic changes.

Is this a bad thing? Well, Google see it as improving the experience for users – which is much needed. And I’m sure like me, you hate being tricked into trying to use an old voucher code or buying a product that appears to have a good review, only for it to be useless.

It’s a sign of how hard things are now for publishers, with sharp declines in social traffic and display ad revenue. It seems diversification of income streams and focusing on high quality, relevant content continues to be the best advice.

Read: How news publishers can compete with the threat of AI

Logan Paul’s perfect rebuttal of Prime ‘forever chemicals’ claim

26 April 2024

I’m impressed with how Logan Paul has cleverly responded to and rebutted serious allegations that his drink Prime Hydration contains illegally high levels of chemicals from the plastic bottles (PFAs, or ‘forever chemicals.’)

He did it in a way that feels authentic and believable to his followers, with a lot of hard work done behind the scenes.

You may have read about the class action lawsuit in the US, or seen viral videos on TikTok from a medical malpractice lawyer not directly linked to the case, talking about it.

What Paul and his team have done so well here is rebut each claim in great detail on TikTok – where a lot of the buzz is happening and where he has a huge following – not in a press release, or a briefing to journalists, or a long Twitter thread,like one of Prime’s rivals might do.

It looks like a typical green screen/reaction TikTok, but it has clearly been carefully researched, produced (and legally checked) using facts and stats to support Paul’s defence, in a way that any detailed rebuttal would, but with characteristic Logan swagger.

He then shared the same video natively on Twitter, Instagram (where he has his biggest social following) – but interestingly, not on his massive YouTube channel.

And his punchy, authentic response even won him some new customers!

Yes, there are some outstanding questions over the amount of caffeine in his product, which is popular with children, despite the hype dying down a lot.

But as a response to allegations that could cause serious reputational damage to him and his company, it’s a smart move.

This doesn’t mean that your CEO should try to copy this exactly for your next crisis; it’s all about being true to your brand/company, knowing your audience and where they are online, tackling the rebuttal at the source, and being confident in what you’re saying.

Read why GHCQ’s former cyber chief believes TikTok ban is “more about geopolitics than cyber security”

Ofcom Podcast Survey 2024 provides great audience insights

23 April 2024

The Ofcom Podcast Survey 2024 gives us a fascinating insight into how audiences consume podcasts – and what to think about if you have your own show.

Media consultant Adam Bowie has gone through Ofcom’s data to pull out the key findings – and what they mean.

Ofcom Podcast Survey: podcast consumption is plateauing

The share of people in the UK listening to podcasts regularly (at least once a week) has stayed the same as in recent years – but we’re listening to slightly fewer than before.

Ofcom: Podcast listening varies a lot by demographics

Ofcom Podcast SUrvey 2024 shows changes to audience habits by age

Credit: AdamBowie.com

There’s been a big increase in the number of 18-24 year olds listening to them, while the figures for 25-54s have decreased. And ethnic minorities are overwhelmingly listening to podcasts more regularly than other ethnicities. And it’s still a sharp divide between socio-economic backgrounds – ABC1s are much more likely to consume podcasts.

And what people are doing when they’re listening to shows varies a lot depending on age.

Social media is best to promote new shows, says Ofcom Podcast Survey 2024

The chart below shows how social media and word of mouth can be key in promoting new shows, especially for 18-34 year olds.

Ofcom Podcast Survey 2024: social media is the biggest way for audiences to find new shows

Credit: AdamBowie.com

But news leaders are investing more in video over podcasts

Though it seems that media leaders are not prioritising podcasts this year; according to this Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism report, they are focusing more on video.

Is there space or interest to launch a new podcast?

The results of this Ofcom Podcast Survey is another reminder of the importance of looking at data, especially your own, and examining what content your audience likes (and doesn’t) and their behaviours. However, this is a very broad market – there is a podcast for every niche nowadays, and what applies generally, or to one show and their audience, may not apply to yours.

If you are being asked to make a podcast, look at your existing audience insight and analyse the competition in the podcast market – is there space for a new show, and is there likely to be demand for it?

And consider whether audio is the best format. From a personal point of view, I find that the visual version of my own show, Sorry You Went Viral, performs far better than the pod offering – especially the clips on TikTok and YouTube.

You can read the raw data from Ofcom here, but I really recommend reading Adam’s easy-to-read analysis in full.

Calls to pivot to video (again) – but why it may not be right for you

9 April 2024

‘Pivot to video’ is a familiar phrase over recent years, as much mocked as celebrated, and it seems it’s back in fashion again with Facebook and LinkedIn pushing their new vertical video feeds.

Pivot to video: Meta unveils Facebook's new vertical video player

Consumers prefer the news in written form over video

Video is very popular for entertainment purposes. But according to the respected Reuters Institute for Journalism’s digital news report, all audiences – including 18-24 year olds – prefer to read text-based versions of the news than listen or watch it.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t invest in video or audio, but don’t rush to ditch the website! Use your own performance data and audience research to recognise what kind of content your target group has engaged with previously. If you do use social videos, use the post caption to add more detail, rather than ‘link in bio’ – it can help to provide greater understanding and context, and also be beneficially for SEO (search) purposes.

If you do pivot to video, make your content distinguishable

This latest surge to video is another attempt to imitate TikTok, but without their ingenious mysterious algorithm – no-one has come close to it. But with more content – especially video – than ever before, how are your posts going to stand out and be watched?

Last week, the Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz has written about the “beastification of YouTube,” where every video looks the same as a MrBeast video, making it very hard to stand out.

You know the type: the hyper-energetic, quick cuts and fast-paced videos, with big graphics and OTT reactions. It’s even easier to achieve now thanks to cheap online editing software and TikTok’s own CapCut, with their built-in transitions and elements.

It can be a good idea to imitate popular production styles if you want your content (and messaging) to blend in natively on that platform, but how does a user distinguish between your work and others? And what would stop them flicking past if it has the same familiar start?

Even MrBeast himself, Jimmy Donaldson, has called an end to this type of video!

How to make your video content stand out

So much video feels like ‘disposable content’ – you watch it, maybe even share it with a mate on WhatsApp, but you instantly forget about it.

Focusing on particular topics and interests (‘niches’ seems the wrong word for what can be incredibly popular subjects) can help you to build up a following (or return viewers) and also authority and credibility.

To be truly effective content, it needs to make the viewer feel like it’s new or provide practical information for them, be relevant to their interests and/or beliefs – and ideally trigger an emotional response: happy, sad, angry or any other feeling. It can really help to create an connection, provide a lasting memory of what they saw, land points, and encourage users to like, comment or share it.

You don’t have to be over-focussed on the first few seconds of a video; add on-screen text and subtitles to hook people in, and use the first line of the post caption to add more value. Telling a compelling, story, rather than jumping around, can keep viewers engaged and help them remember what they watched and heard. If it can be centered around someone’s personal story, even better. And try to make it distinctive from other videos on that platform – even if it is the backdrop to your selfie videos on LinkedIn.

I’ve been testing various forms of social video for years and learnt that it doesn’t need to be a MrBeast-type production, all shiny or slick, or in 9:16 portrait size; if it resonates with an audience, however grainy and amateurish, it can work. But equally the same impact can also be achieved through a meme or a still image – it doesn’t always have to be video.

If you need a hand with your content strategy, get in touch – or sign up to my emails for practical updates to help you cut through the sometimes complex, competitive and ever-changing media landscape.

How news publishers can compete with the threat of AI

28 March 2024

It was interesting to read the thoughts of media and tech consultant Ian Betteridge on AI’s challenges and threats AI to news publishers, and what he thinks the solution are – and they are not as difficult as you may think.

“What’s your competitive advantage as a publishing business? It’s not the ability to churn out more articles than anybody else”

AI could mean a move away from cheap and easy SEO-friendly articles

In an interview with Media Voices, Ian rightly asserts that the low-hanging fruit of SEO-friendly ‘what time is kick-off’ and ‘when are the shops open over Easter?’ style-content “can be generated by anybody really cheaply, and got up online fast. They can milk whatever traffic’s there.”

And as we already see when we search for something, “a lot of that stuff is going to be answered directly by Google” on its search results page – and it’s only going to get better with Google Bard.

And the recent changes to Google’s search ranking algorithm are designed to downrank SEO-chasing, low-quality and spammy articles.

Focus on your USP to beat AI: authoritative, credible and distinctive content

Ian poses a good question to large publishers:

“You are a company with 1,000 employees. What’s your competitive advantage over the one person who can do that every week? If the answer is, you haven’t got any, then you need to rethink your content strategy. Because that’s not a viable business.”

In effect, you need to look back at what makes you stand out from your rivals and remember why you grew your audience initially: good, credible, authoritative journalism that your audience cares about.

Use your audience research and analyse your digital stats to see the content that is of interest to your readers. If you focus on that, you are likely to build a stronger following and be in a better position to transition some of those people to pay for your work.

As Ian says,

“The big advantage you’ve got as a human being is you’ve got experience, so you can go out and talk to people. AI can’t do that… And that’s quite old-school journalism in a sense, because it is about tapping into the emotions and the needs of your audience in a way that only a human can do with another human.”

If you think about AI videos, for example, we’ve seen a lot of poorly-made ones that illustrate what someone is talking about but lack human empathy and connection. Or remember when Microsoft used AI to write travel guides?

Ian also talks about the rise in affiliate content, which is often poorly produced and leaves you feeling that they’re selecting something for revenue over a proper, expert review – personally, I prefer to go a trusted, reputable site like Which? first, than rely on Google results.

It was interesting to read of Reach’s plans to centralise content production for certain types of articles, allowing regions to focus on more original articles. Whether this means these hub-produced pieces have the flair or personality on things like TV reviews, remains to be seen.

This doesn’t mean that AI is bad for publishers

There’s already been some great use of AI to automate some manual, time-consuming tasks, help optimise content such as selecting the best performing headline out of a handful written, and provide a more personalised experience for the user, from TikTok to Netflix.

To transition your news publishing business to succeed in the era of AI will take time – and as Ian says, “There’s going to be a whole world of pain to get to that point.” But if you keep focused on your audience and your data, you have a good chance of doing well and be rewarded for it by Google and others.

Ofcom admits it’s hard to regulate news on social media

25 March 2024

Ofcom seem to admit they’re unsure what they can do to improve the range and quality of news on social media:

“People have limited control over their social media newsfeeds and trying to design interventions to improve the breadth and quality of news consumed on social media is a complex task.”

Their Online News research update, published today, confirms a lot about what we know about how platforms serve the content they think the user would be most interested in.

We have already learned how Meta is now only behind the BBC and ITV in terms of sources of news and in terms of ‘sources of attention’, its even bigger than ITV.

Ofcom reveal its studies into improving what news people see on social media

Ofcom has carried out some trials and detailed some interesting academic studies, on trying to improve the breadth and balance of news in people’s feeds. These include getting people to follow public service broadcast accounts, follow counter-attitudinal news sources, asking them to review who they follow and adding a trust rating browser extension.

But in short, they say these interventions were complex, not user-friendly and that the algorithms still had a large say on what users saw.

Also complicating the issue is how nearly all social platforms, except for LinkedIn, have made it a lot harder for people to access news websites away from the platform by depriortising or not allowing the ability to add in links to posts.

And Sky News for example, has said how poor Twitter referral traffic had been even before the changes imposed by Elon Musk.

BBC promise more personalisation on iPlayer as it competes with Netflix

Is it too late to close the stable door after the horse has bolted?

Not for BBC Director-General Tim Davie, who will warn tomorrow about allowing “US and Chinese algorithms” to shape what we consume, pledging to invest and modernise all of its online products, including iPlayer, to provide a more personalised service.

Other PSBs are investing more time and effort in their own platforms, primarily for financial reasons, but does this mean our feeds will become even more like the Wild West, with For You pages prioritising poor quality, sensationalised content at the expense of an informed society?

TikTok ban ‘more about geopolitics than cyber security’ – ex-GCHQ cyber chief

21 March 2024

There’s been lots said in the threat of a TikTok ban in by politicians in the US, but I found the expert thoughts of Ciaran Martin, the former GCHQ cyber chief and ex-head of the National Cyber Security Centre, fascinating and really insightful.

He told the BBC’s Media Show that:

“This is mostly an issue both about geopolitics, and influence and control over the Internet, than strictly speaking a cybersecurity issue”

Here’s part of Ciaran’s points he made to Katie Razzall – it’s worth checking out the full discussion on BBC Sounds

What are the cyber security concerns driving calls for a TikTok ban?

Ciaran Martin says there are two “classic cyber security issues” behind calls for a ban on TikTok: the compelled handing over of data under Chinese law and the download of potential Chinese state malware through apps.

But he points out that “the data economy is so out of control that the idea that you can ban your way to data security on a country of origin basis is essentially nonsense”, pointing out cyber issues with Russian criminals in the US healthcare system.

He adds that to stop the Chinese government getting your personal data requires more than just banning TikTok.
Ciaran does raise the points about China banning Facebook, and concerns over whether the algorithm could be manipulated to seed misinformation and disinformation about Western countries – but given how particular TikTok’s For You page is to each user, I’m not sure how possible this is in reality. I didn’t agree with Ciaran’s dismissal of the app as merely “a service to frivolous videos”, as it is having a far greater impact on culture, news and entertainment.

So these concerns, coupled with how Chinese tech companies have become closer to Beijing authorities, make sense why Western governments treat TikTok as a ‘risk’ to national security.

As for banning TikTok on government phones, I agree with Ciaran about not having any social media apps on them, given the amount of data they gather (more on that in a minute.)

Should I, my children, or my organisation be on TikTok?

The answers depend on who you are.

18 months ago, the director of GCHQ, Jeremy Fleming, said if personal data is used proportionally and “we’re happy with the way that data is safeguarded”, then it should present no problem for any user.

He said, “Make the most of it, make those videos, use TikTok, but just think before you do.” He reminded us that “there is no free good here” with any apps, especially social media, as they store personal data.

Asked if he would stop his child using TikTok, he said, “No I wouldn’t,” but he would “speak to my child about the way in which they think about their personal data on their device.”

Both the British and Irish regulators have fined Bytedance for how it didn’t stop under-13s being on the platform, didn’t set under-16s’ accounts to private when created and other data protection issues.

On their website, TikTok says Americans’ personal data is stored on US cloud servers run by software firm Oracle, while European data will soon be held in Dublin. It adds that user data “is protected by strong physical and logical security controls, including gated entry points, firewalls, and intrusion detection technologies.”

For organisations, there are increasingly compelling reasons to be on there. If you’re targeting young adults, 18-24 year olds use it for an average of 55 minutes a day, according to Ofcom figures from last year, while the demographic of users is getting increasingly older. And another Ofcom study suggests as many as 1 in 10 of us use TikTok as a news source – more so than BBC Radio 1 and Channel 5.

And despite concerns about government departments having accounts, they have been happy to work with TikTok influencers to help reach target audiences in campaigns.

Will TikTok be banned?

We don’t know if a ban on TikTok will happen yet – there’s a long way to go. Even if the US President approves the decision, Bytedance has six months to sell its American arm. And the UK will likely follow what Washington does, rather than do their own thing.

Like using any social platform, you should be prepared that trends come and go, and any organisation’s social media or digital communications strategy shouldn’t be totally reliant on a social channel or service that you don’t own yourself.

The concerns over data gathered by Facebook and other Meta apps

Ciaran seemed more concerned by the investigation by Times reporter Matilda Davies into the “horrifying level of detail” that Facebook have on her, including 20,000 interactions over two years with websites and apps that were not connected to her Meta-owned accounts:

In fact, between December 2021 and December 2023, Meta — the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — tracked me an average of 33 times a day from websites and apps that aren’t connected to my social media accounts. Even when I wasn’t looking at them, they were looking at me.

Like TikTok, Meta says it processes the data safely, but Matilda says they are “very opaque” on how it uses it.

Ciaran said it was “a really concerning story” and how we “need a really, really serious conversation about the data economy more generally, and one that’s more better informed than just saying ‘it’s all based on the country of origin of a particular service provider’.”

I really recommend listening to the BBC Media Show discussion on TikTok, Meta and Twitter – and following Ciaran Martin on Twitter/X

If you want a chat about how your company could use TikTok, or issues raised in this article, get in touch.

Be careful! LinkedIn ‘rewrite with AI’ feature uses your expertise for free

19 March 2024

If you’ve tried out LinkedIn’s ‘rewrite with AI’ feature – even like me, just to see what it looks like – you may be surprised to learn this.

In its FAQs, LinkedIn say they keep the information and “seek to minimise personal data” entered to train its generative AI software – this is in keeping with other services like Chat GPT.

My former ITV News colleague, Suswati Basu points out that it also applies to the collaborative articles that you may see in your feed asking for your expert thoughts on a topic.

Some of you may be OK with that, but think about what you’re happy to give your expertise away for free – or include potentially sensitive information or names of people.

LinkedIn’s FAQs on its use of personal data and gen AI is here.