France is famous for its philosophical debates, fine wine and taking public holidays very seriously, but now its intelligence agency is adding another item to the national agenda: TikTok. According to a recent report from the General Directorate for Internal Security, known to its friends as the DGSI, the Chinese-owned social media platform may be nudging French youth down a slippery slope towards radicalisation, though not the kind involving balaclavas but rather the type that involves dancing teens and suspicious algorithms.
The DGSI’s concern, outlined in a report recently passed to members of France’s Senate, suggests that TikTok’s algorithm may be acting as a curious mix of digital pied piper and chaotic philosopher, leading adolescents to extremist content faster than you can say “For You Page.” The report warns of what it delicately refers to as “information manipulation” linked to Chinese state interests, which is security jargon for what the rest of us call “propaganda, but with pop music and memes.”
It also notes that some teenagers, especially those disillusioned with current social and political institutions — because nothing screams radical potential like a 14-year-old who just googled “late capitalism” — are particularly vulnerable to this kind of algorithmic mischief, especially when the algorithm has all the subtly of a caffeinated puppy chasing a squirrel.
The intelligence agency doesn’t accuse Beijing of directly radicalising French citizens via catchy dance challenges and lip-synced rants, but it stops just short, painting a picture of a platform that could one day become the Louvre of digital influence operations. The French government has already taken minor steps in this regard, banning TikTok on government-issued devices last year, which was received by civil servants with all the enthusiasm of being told their coffee breaks would henceforth be caffeine-free.
ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has not commented on the findings, perhaps too busy assuring the world for the hundredth time that no, it’s not secretly orchestrating aimless thumb-swiping revolutions. Meanwhile, French senators have taken to the idea like philosophers to a café argument, as the report fuels ongoing legislative debates over how to regulate and rein in TikTok’s reach.
In a country that proudly invented the term raison d’être and famously has opinions on absolutely everything, the idea of a Chinese app using AI to shape young minds without any semblance of a Socratic dialogue was never going to go down quietly.
After all, in France, even algorithms must respect liberté, égalité and the appropriate amount of existential brooding.