What aren’t you telling me?

[Bloomberg] [Fully Charged]( From [Bloomberg](   [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]]( [Twitter Share]( [SUBSCRIBE [Subscribe]](  Hi folks, it's Shelly. A summer of unrest has gripped Hong Kong for the last few months. Users of TikTok, [one of the hottest apps on the planet right now](, wouldn't know it.  Conspicuously absent on the popular short-video app are many of the videos of tear gas, water cannons and street brawls that have inundated feeds on Twitter, Facebook and Telegram for months. They have documented in real time how peaceful marches against a China extradition bill morphed into a monumental and sometimes violent pro-democracy movement.  Users on TikTok, which is run by Beijing-based ByteDance, would have virtually no idea anything out of the ordinary was unfolding in Hong Kong if they weren't looking elsewhere. While there are at least 100 visible posts related to the protests, [particularly in Chinese](, the #HongKong hashtag in English showcases mostly videos of the city skyline, market hawkers, and girls dancing in the streets. Popular protest hashtags like [#antielab]( and #hkprotest reveal just a handful of posts. The Washington Post called this a ["politically convenient version of reality."](  A ByteDance spokesman told me that the company doesn't remove videos "due to the presence of Hong Kong protest content." He said people use TikTok because it provides a positive, joyful experience and that the company would take down posts only if they violated its terms of service or community guidelines. Since those guidelines prohibit "dangerous acts" as well as "violent, graphic, shocking or sensational content," that means certain videos depicting police with guns or tear-gas canisters, for example, could be booted. That might have been the case in this protest-related video that was said to be [taken down](.  When I tried to upload a handful of non-violent videos of Hong Kong protests, they did go through, although it took a few hours before they showed up on the search results of the app.  Still, there's something that just doesn't add up for me. TikTok has been downloaded more than a billion times globally, according to app tracker Sensor Tower. It's been installed on 1.7 million phones in Hong Kong, a city of 7.4 million people, a quarter whom are believed to have taken part in protests. The app's also targeted at teens and twenty-somethings, the core of Hong Kong's activists. Videos of other politically sensitive events have found their way to virality on TikTok, such as in the [Kashmir conflict]( and [U.S. teacher strikes](. And yet, as a casual TikTok user in Hong Kong scrolling through videos, you might never happen upon a post related to the city's protests in your feed. Since the algorithms and decisions are a black box, it's hard to really know.  Either way, the dearth of protest-related videos raises questions over possible censorship practices by ByteDance, which my colleague David Ramli and [I wrote about earlier this year](. The company has been unapologetic about how it screens posts using AI software and an army of tens of thousands of content moderators in pursuit of a platform free of controversy. It's a uniquely Chinese approach to content moderation and one that stands in contrast to the hands-off approach of ByteDance’s American counterparts, who tend to support free speech. One TikTok exec plainly told us that it wants to be a “one-stop entertainment platform where people come to have fun rather than creating any political strife.”  But who decides what controversy means? Or what content is deemed offensive, sensational or likely to cause political strife? China has exerted strict content controls on its tech companies, raising questions over possible interference in ByteDance, whose apps now influence what hundreds of millions of people in the U.S., India and dozens of other countries see every day. In theory, it sounds a little charming to think of TikTok as an outlet for young people to post silly things and have fun, giving them an alternative to the toxicity that can infect Twitter and Facebook. But the Hong Kong protests provide a sort of stress test of what that means in practice: A worldview that's devoid of what's actually happening on the ground.  And here’s what you need to know in global technology news: After a lot of buildup, WeWork might now [delay its IPO](. The company says it will still do the IPO by the end of the year, but a sinking valuation and doubts about its money-losing business model are issues it will seek to address first.  The Foxconn billionaire that made headlines in a bid to become the next leader of Taiwan said he was going to withdraw from next year's presidential election. "That doesn't mean I have given up on politics," [Terry Gou told supporters.](  Banish thoughts of Uber, Airbnb or whatever other flashy startup comes to mind when you imagine Silicon Valley riches. The superdull are the few sure things, [writes columnist Shira Ovide.](  The biggest backers of SoftBank's Vision Fund leviathan are [rethinking](their commitment to a second investment vehicle.   Sponsored Content by Lacework Lacework closes $42 million in funding to drive the new generation of security. This new generation of security must be purpose-built to secure today’s modern infrastructure and bridge Security & DevOps Teams. 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