How will US’ TikTok ban impact Pacific peoples in NZ?

A digital marketing expert says there is a "big possibility" that New Zealand could follow the US in banning TikTok.

A law has been passed in the United States that could see the popular social media app banned in the country within a year.

The managing director of Dioscuri Jeremy Logan, says TikTok bans have already happened in other countries in different ways.

"Already in a lot of countries, including New Zealand, it's illegal to have TikTok on government-owned phones and devices," Logan says.

Other countries that have put partial bans on the app for government officials include Australia, Canada, France and the United Kingdom.

Logan says the already lingering fear around TikTok alongside the recent motion to fully ban the app in the US means a potential ban in Aotearoa is not far fetched.

Behind the ban: Tension in TikTok's ties to China

Logan says that TikTok has never been released in China, as the app's parent company ByteDance initially launched their app Douyin in 2016, which Logan calls the "precursor to TikTok".

"And then ByteDance released TikTok which is the international version that was globally used the year after.

"In terms of the concerns from the laws, there's been two key areas that have been highlighted by the American policymakers."

He says the first key area of concern is that the app is Chinese-owned so TikTok's user data is likely stored in servers across China and Asia.

"There's the fear that the Chinese government could force ByteDance to provide all that personal information to China.

"So that's people's locations, their names, their emails, their activity and all those sorts of things."

However, Logan says it is important to note that any data mining of the app by the Chinese government has never been proven. He says however that fear is likely why governments have banned TikTok on civil servants' and politicians' phones.

He says the second key area, which is "the bigger fear", is the app's ability to spread misinformation and influence users through the pushing of "opinions or views of the Chinese government which may counteract in this case the US government's view on things".

"It's definitely has a lot of ability and these are sort of the key areas that they're afraid it could lead to."

How the US banning TikTok will impact NZ

Dioscuri is an Auckland-based, Pacific-owned and operated marketing consultancy agency. Logan, who has over 15 years of experience in the marketing space, specialises in digital transformation and engaging hard-to-reach audiences.

Logan says the impact on New Zealand would occur overtime as the US is the largest for marketing spend, "which means advertising dollars".

He says that ByteDance is fearful of losing that market as it would dramatically reduce the overall long-term experience of users on the platform.

"A lot of individuals use TikTok to grow their small businesses.

"The algorithm's incredibly good and it allows you to discover both local and international people.

"That being taken away will impact them and it's a big part over here in New Zealand."

Why is TikTok popular with Pacific peoples in NZ?

Logan says that TikTok's primary audience is young, where in 2023 around 75 per cent of users were under the age of 35.

He says this demographic connects to NZ Pacific communities where, according to Stats NZ, the Pacific population is a young population with a median age of 23.4 years in 2018 compared to 37.4 years of the total population.

Logan says "we're right in that target demographic", but also says the "incredible talent" of Pacific communities on the app, especially the youth, is another factor.

"Their ability to be creative, their dance, their sport, their music - They're so incredibly creative in those areas.

"A lot of us in the Pacific community have the ability to tell stories really well from our heritage, our whakapapa and all these sort of things were passed on.

"We're able to tell stories well in a short way and when you combine these two things that allows us to create really amazing short-form content which is what TikTok is about."

One of PMN News's biggest TikTok videos, with up to half a million views and 65 per cent viewership between 18 to 24 years old, just so happens to be about Pacific youth celebrating Tonga language week 2023:

Potential impact of TikTok ban on Pacific youth

Logan says that Pacific youth are already one of the hardest audiences to reach, citing various reasons why, but that the biggest one is a long lack of authentic Pacific representation in a lot of spaces.

"Because of that a lot of the work to reach us wasn't targeted correctly.

"They didn't understand how we thought, how we moved and this is slowly starting to change but it is an ongoing challenge."

He says though that the potential ban of TikTok in NZ could add to that ongoing challenge.

"TikTok is one of the few platforms in the last 10 to 15 years that's been very heavily youth-centric.

"It's has really good marketing tools that are youth-centric and most of our Pacific youth are looking at it on a daily basis."

Logan says the main challenge with Pacific youth is delivering the right message in the right way.

"It's a bad thing to lose but there still needs to be work done on how messages have been delivered on TikTok as well to the youth."

Watch the full interview via 531pi's Facebook page below: