The Ministry of Defence has defended its use of TikTok, advising that they utilise TikTok as a strategic platform to showcase the UK Armed Forces’ global efforts, including training Ukrainian soldiers, to reach vital overseas audiences.
They say that by leveraging the MoD’s secure publishing model, experienced digital communications management, and third-party software, the department effectively and safely operates the TikTok account without using government devices.
The information came to light in response to a written question from John Healey, the Labour MP for Wentworth and Dearne and Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, for what reason his Department has kept its official Ministry of Defence TikTok account.”
Ben Wallace, the Secretary of State for Defence, responded:
“The Ministry of Defence TikTok account has been implemented to communicate globally the ongoing efforts of the UK Armed Forces, including our work with nine partner nations, to train Ukrainian soldiers and prepare them for frontline combat.
To deliver our messages internationally we must leverage the largest digital platforms available to us with the most significant reach and scale. Defence communications needs to speak to both domestic and overseas audiences and as well as showcasing Defence events, our comms also form part of UK strategic messaging. TikTok is currently key to reaching vital overseas audiences.
Our TikTok channel showcases the amazing courage and determination of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to win the war and highlights the multilateral support for UK-led training of Ukrainian troops.
Whilst the benefits vs risk case is finely balanced, the MOD’s secure publishing model and long-standing experience of digital communication channels management enable us to operate the channel safely.
Robust processes are in place to control publishing to social media from within the MOD. Communications on social media are delivered by separate systems through a small number of communications staff. TikTok communications, like all social media publishing, are delivered via third-party software and no Government (or personal) devices are being used to publish or monitor the platform directly. The MOD’s secure publishing model means that no MOD staff are logged into TikTok using an official device.”
What’s the big deal?
Controversy over TikTok being used by Western forces stems from several concerns. I’ll summarise them here.
- Data privacy and security: TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has faced accusations of collecting user data and potentially sharing it with the Chinese government. Western forces using the platform could raise concerns about data privacy and the potential risk of exposing sensitive information.
- Propaganda and misinformation: The use TikTok for spreading propaganda or misinformation is a prevalent concern. Critics argue that Western forces could be vulnerable to such content or inadvertently contribute to its dissemination.
- Legitimising the platform: By using TikTok, Western military forces could lend credibility to a platform that has faced significant scrutiny and criticism over its data privacy practices and content moderation policies.
For more on the controversy, have a read here.
There is no security / INFOSEC angle to this at all.
TikTok is just being used as a publishing platform.
The way some of the commentary is being written makes it sound like it is being used for battlefield comms!
👍
Although after the Huwei madness you never know with some in HMG till they come to their senses.
Indeed. The only potential concern, that the act of publishing information intended for global public consumption might cause a security breach because of malware in the TikTok client being used, is very specifically addressed in the announcement. Since that is a genuine concern I would hope that those systems used to actually post the info are air gapped from any other systems with sanitisation procedures used on the USB sticks used to transfer the posts onto the air gapped machines (probably sanitised via a use-once then destroy policy). I would be pretty sure that the MoD have taken appropriate advice, probably from GCHQ, so they know what they are doing. Nothing to see here – move along.
It’s a major platform that Young people use a lot. Some of these young people will need to become part of the U.K. forces in the future.
It makes sense to publish on the platform for views.
As with all platforms they come and go, new ones become trendy etc.
A lot of the current concerns regards Tik Tok, is that in December last year, the parent company ByteDance publicly admitted that some of its employees had used the app to spy on journalists who they felt were investigating the company. This resulted in the company coming under the spotlight of the FBI and the issuing of a ruling by the US gov for the app to be removed from Government issues phones (quickly followed by other governments) that ban does not apply to private phones..(yet)
There have also been many questions raised about the surreptitious way Tik Tok dances (not just the NHS/Police service during lock down) to the tune of the Chinese government (which owns a golden share allowing it a seat in the company board room) such as shadow banning those who upload anything critical of the Chinese Government (A classic example was where one Australian newspaper posted video of the Chinese Tiananmen Square protest tankman and only the phone used to upload that video could see it), its also been found that Tik Tok have removed any content which berates Moscow regards invading the Ukraine inside Russia, whilst shadow banning anti-Russian posts from around the world been viewed inside Russia.
Selecting content is an issue. The Chinese government is a concern if trying to use TikTok to block messages they dont like.
A lot of socials have restrictions on what can be put up.
YouTube demonetising lots of content and removing others. patreon has banned some Ukraine reporters, combat veteran being one of them.
these are companies who can decide what they want on or not on there sites/apps.
When folks have tried to start some restriction free app they end up getting the worst of society mostly up loading.
What the answer is I don’t know but these social media companies can fall out of favour with the public quickly.
TikTok was nowhere a few years ago.
Telegram is pulling Facebook customers.
Remember bebo, yahoo etc etc.
The fact that the UK Department of Defence defends the use of tiktok says little about the app’ but speaks volumes about the UK Department of Defence!
The use of Tik Tok must, at least, be a concern to be watched, and watched carefully, if Government departments are going to be using it even if it’s just for publishing ( what amounts to) PR Adverts. There is, after all, some little friction between China and the West at present and it would be naive to think that China wouldn’t be using any and all data it could get it’s hands on should it feel that they would want to manipulate the conversation or public perception. The thing is that it doesn’t have to be “Government Information” per say, not just a information gathering method. It can also be used as a influencing mechanism to alter or change the direction of narrative. These can be extraordinarily subtle and placed in the vicinity of government published PR. Advertising, comments sections ( like this one) false flag articles and the like are all fair game to the Intelligence Communities of “whatever” country. The Chinese just happen to be very good at it. TikTok may seem like a perfectly reasonable platform to use but, it should be remembered, that it’s parent companies are Chinese owned and subject to the Chinese Government and therefore, if required to do so, would have to hand all data over to the Chinese Government if they “asked” for it.
I’m not saying this is happening, I’m just saying to be aware of certain things and be cautious.
I think the question should have been who does not use tik tok, I Don,t but I’m old and don’t care but definitely a lot of the younger generation, but let’s be honest anything we do on the net or an app is collecting data
If we can trust the CCP we can trust TikTok.
Going by recent & current CCP form…. ….MOD seems like lemmings wearing suicide vests.