Jake Talks TikTok on Chinese State Television

"This is endemic to how surveillance works as a product now across so many of these platforms. And Tik Tok has been in the past the most engrossing form of it."

When you’re a full-time employee of a credentialed news outlet, you’re often approached by other networks, and occasionally by networks in other countries, to come on as a guest. But for the most part you’re prohibited from accepting those invitations. I’ve turned down requests from Russian state television, from Turkish television, and from Chinese state television when I was a full-time employee because my employer didn’t want their brand associated with competitors or with outlets of dubious standards.

But now that I’m out in the world I can accept any invitation I like. I’ve had a few I’ve turned down, but when CGTN, the Chinese state news service, asked me this week to come on to talk about TikTok’s new American ownership, I accepted. My feeling was that I wanted to understand how they might be approaching this story, and especially how the framing of the piece might try to push the idea that it’s all over for TikTok now that it’s no longer solely owned by a Chinese company. I’ll let you be the judge of how I did.