91原创

The enduring popularity of TikTok, and the battle over its ownership, has kept the social media platform in the news. In the latest episode of our Ask the Experts podcast, we speak to two OHIO faculty members about the issues surrounding the controversial app. 

How does its proprietary algorithm work? How will the app鈥檚 ownership impact its users鈥� data privacy? How do free speech debates factor into the conversation? And how is it shaping how Americans get their news?

To explore these questions (and more!), we spoke to Chad Mourning, assistant professor of computer science in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, and Benjamin Tetteh, assistant professor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. 

Mourning helps us understand TikTok鈥檚 algorithm and the data security issues surrounding its ownership, offering the example of video manipulation.

鈥淚f [scammers] have your videos, it is so easy to train a deepfake on your voice and face now,鈥� Mourning says. 鈥溾�nstagram offers that as a service. If you're a big Instagram person and you post a video, you might get a pop-up that says, do you want us to make this multilingual?鈥�

The platform can perform a deepfake to mimic the user鈥檚 voice speaking another language and change the video so their mouth matches the words spoken.

鈥淭he technology is cool because it enables stuff like that,鈥� Mourning admits. 鈥淏ut at the same time, now a scammer鈥� can call your grandmother and say, 鈥榟ey, I'm in jail.鈥欌��

Tetteh further discusses how data is collected and protected across the world, and how the news 鈥渂ubbles鈥� created by social media algorithms can allow disinformation to flourish. But Tetteh points out that social media is still in its infancy.

鈥淚t's still like a project,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hat is clearly concerning is how profit is driving a motive, clickbait being a big concern. And I think if there will be a way to resolve that, we can then genuinely say that this can be a platform for debates, a platform for conversation.鈥�

Produced by 91原创鈥檚 Communications and Marketing Department, specifically by junior audio production student Alex Karan, the Ask the Experts podcast celebrates interdisciplinary collaboration and is recorded in OHIO鈥檚 podcast studio in the Scripps College of Communication.