TikTok’s days may be numbered

Caught in diplomatic crosshairs amid mounting U.S.-China tensions, the app is now facing a proposed federal ban

TikTok, it seems, has eyes everywhere.

Marcus H. ’25 recalls talking with his friend over FaceTime about the embroidery business they recently founded together.

When he opened TikTok that same evening, his feed was suddenly full of embroidery-themed content.

“It’s a scary app,” Marcus said. “I feel like it knows everything about me.”

But TikTok’s eerily accurate algorithms may soon be the catalyst for the app’s downfall in the United States, as what was once a ubiquitous facet of the Chineseowned social media platform has become embroiled in a diplomatic war over national security.

The U.S. government’s apprehension surrounding TikTok began in 2020 when then-President Donald Trump proposed a ban on the app. His administration cited concerns that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent spending bill in December 2022 that included a provision banning TikTok on government-issued devices. Furthermore, dozens of public universities, including Texas A&M and the entire University System of Georgia, have subsequently instituted their own bans on the app for devices on campus Wi-Fi networks.

A bipartisan group of senators has recently introduced the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP) Act, which would prohibit TikTok for all American users.

Extensive data collection is not a novel concept, nor is it unique to TikTok. Many companies, including Google and Facebook, use data such as location, interests, and age to build a profile for each user.

“If I’m an advertiser, that’s the holy grail,” said computer science teacher Wes Chao, who worked at Facebook for six years. The more specific the demographic information, the more money advertisers are willing to spend on that platform in order to reach their target audience, Chao

A more dubious issue arises when that data is used to sway users politically.

Chao recalled the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political consulting firm harvested the information of millions of Facebook users without their consent then used it to assist the 2016 presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz by pinpointing users’ political preferences and determining which ads would influence them most. Facebook was ultimately fined $5 billion for its role in the TikTok’s connections with the Chinese government are now facing similar scrutiny surrounding data privacy practices and potential political implications. In particular, Chao pointed

The WRC sprouts a fresh pop of green What is the story behind the library’s new plants?

Humanities Director & WRC Director Jen Paull, upper school librarian Katie Kintz, and other faculty members.

Students scatter the tables of the Writing and Research Center (WRC) immersed in calculus problems, stories of ancient civilizations, and the glamorous life of Jay Gatsby. Meanwhile, in the corner sits a gawky teenager, hunched under a beam of sunlight shining through the library’s tall

Unlike its peers, this teen isn’t studying, nor is it human. This inhabitant is one of the many new plants that joined the WRC in early January gifted by

“When we talk to students and faculty, everybody is hungry for greenery and really welcoming it in this public space,” Paull said.

Paull, however, confesses: she does not have a green thumb.

For the past few weeks, Paull has been sourcing and propagating plants from neighbors, friends, and even a mystery plant from Upper School Division Head Liza Raynal. In transforming the space, Paull has also infused her own love of storytelling into the project.

“I love the idea of having plants with special stories or histories behind them,” Paull said. “[In classes], we talk a lot about these industries that shaped global economies in history. It’s fascinating to see a little example of like, ‘oh my god, this is something that changed the industry.’”

Accommodations At Nueva

One “little example” of an industrychanger is the rubber plant sitting on the windowsill by the blue couches. From the 1900s rubber industry to the Elizabethan age of Shakespeare to international trade, Paull is eager to grow plants tied to history to TikTok’s status as “an app deeply ingrained within the youth”—approximately one-third of users are under 18.

“You have a government, China, whose political goals may not necessarily align with the U.S.’s. And that government has a direct line into the brains of your youth,” Chao said.

As a result, China could leverage TikTok’s algorithm to influence young consumers to be “more positive toward Communism, more positive toward China, more positive toward authoritarian governments.”

Hence, while Chao admits that “bans of things that are highly attractive generally don’t work,” he believes an embargo on TikTok could be beneficial in the short term.

“The general development of software is such that startups are incentivized to succeed first and think about the consequences later,” Chao said. “I don’t think that genie is going back in the bottle.”

Beyond TikTok’s sphere of influence, Julia T. ’24, who has used the app since 2020, worries about the broader implications of a future driven by algorithms, extensive digital footprints, and “the ability for countries as a whole to collect data on their citizens.” and literature students are learning in class.

In some cases, databases of biometric and other personal information can be useful, such as for expediting the airport security process, Julia said.

However, it can quickly become dangerous in the wrong hands, potentially contributing to further surveillance and repression by China and its global allies.

“Tenth-graders are reading Insurrecto, [set] in the Philippines. They talk about certain plants we could propagate here,” said Paull, who hopes to add small signs explaining each plant’s references and its backstory.

Paull’s green ambitions grow beyond potted plants.

“There are so many hard angles in this rectilinear space,” Paull said. “Imagine how incredible it would be if we could have climbing vines around some of the pillars or bigger ferns upstairs to give [the space] that softness.”

To Paull, the plants not only add to the WRC ambience, but also hold “thoughtful significance.” She encourages any plant enthusiasts to lend a hand.

“People love them because they’re beautiful, they have cool names, and they are from people who care about this space,” Paull said. “If anybody has a great green thumb, I’m always looking for advice, so come on over.”

FINE DINING HAS GONE TO THE DOGS... LITERALLY

San

In particular, Julia cited China’s support of Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime.

“It’s problematic in the sense that it is currently being used to further subjugate countries that are already not doing well,” Julia said. “TikTok is an immense data set, and I think that it’s an area of weakness.”

Overall, Julia doesn’t believe the government’s argument for banning TikTok “has that much integrity” and described it as a “mistargeted effort.”

In order to truly ensure national security, she said, the U.S. should instead address internal threats, such as gun violence.

“By trying to focus on the threats to our external safety, I think that we are missing a lot of opportunities to really create internal security,” Julia said. “It’s our own people that are really destroying American safety and American trust.”

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II. WHERE DOES CHATGPT BELONG WITHIN NUEVA?

Seated in the back of her economics class, Alexis T. ’24 fed a series of bizarre sentence prompts to the ChatGPT window.

“Describe a dystopian landscape in the year 3045,” she directed. “Teach me about a random star in our solar system.” “Tell me about what you are.” While the responses she received weren’t perfect, she was still baffled by the fluidity with which they were crafted.

As Alexis experimented, an interview on ChatGPT between Social Impact Filmmaking Club lead Oliver C. and Alexis' teacher, Theodosopoulos, was taking place at the front of the room. And across the hall, physics teachers Barak Yedidia and Mark Hurwitz were announcing to their students that use of the chatbot was banned in their classes.

Since its release, ChatGPT has quickly become the topic of both classroom and hallway discussions. Students registered as users in droves for the opportunity to experiment with various prompts. When Jack L. ’23 first registered, he did the usual—he posed questions about the chatbot, asked it to make inferences about discoveries that hadn’t yet been made, and had it write poetry.

He also tried to break it—to get it to say things that were morally or virtuously wrong, an effort that OpenAI had asked of the public when they released the chatbot in the hopes of strengthening it. And Jack found that as he fed more prompts to the AI, the results became less impressive.

“One of the only things that was impressive to me about ChatGPT was its ability to refer back to past conversations,” he explained. “But when the conversation became longer, it stopped working.” Namely, Jack noticed ChatGPT would repeat information from prior conversations—sometimes even from the ongoing conversation itself.

Aware of the AI-mania filling the halls, Upper School Assistant Division Head Claire Yeo toyed with ChatGPT alongside the Academic Council—a cohort of teachers representing each discipline—as part of their exploratory meeting to determine what steps should be taken. Should a ban, like Yedidia and Hurwitz’s, be enacted school-wide?

To investigate, the council fed the chatbot