SHOULD we follow Indonesia in banning the TikTok online shopping platform? The Indonesian government claimed that TikTok was involved in predatory pricing, which caused damage to local businesses.
The Malaysian government has been spending heavily in improving Internet connection in the country via the Jalinan Digital Negara (Jendela) initiative and 5G rollout.
Meanwhile, the Internet era has been recognised as the era of empowering individuals or putting the power of economic growth into the hands of the people instead of only corporations or businesses.
Through the Internet, single parents, poor farmers and lowly paid individuals from urban, suburban and even remote parts of a country, as long as they are connected, can try to earn some income via social media by promoting/selling local produce, handmade products and even cheaply sourced goods.
In such cases, it does not make sense that these individuals are involved in “predatory pricing”.
These individuals do not have the means to source for goods in bulk like wholesalers or big businesses. I therefore think the propaganda of “predatory pricing” is being circulated by big businesses to protect their profits.
To illustrate who will lose out if there is a TikTok ecommerce ban, let’s take the example of a young girl in a village somewhere in Sabah who wants to help her lowly paid parents to make some money. She gets local cookies from the lady next door and manages to sell them via the TikTok shopping channel, earning some money for herself and the lady as well.
The sales grow and the young girl then helps a few more ladies in the village to sell their cookies, and perhaps handicrafts and other local products.
She not only helps her family by earning some income but also people in her community who are less Internet-savvy. Most probably, she would be helping to lift them out of the poverty line. What would happen if the government bans the TikTok ecommerce platform in this scenario?
Let’s take another example. A fisherman in a village in Perak used to sell his daily catch to a middleman. During the Covid-19 pandemic, due to travel restrictions, the middleman from the Klang Valley could not travel to his village.
Luckily, the fisherman has Internet connection and his son suggested that they sell the daily catch via TikTok to folks living in the town near the village. The fisherman delivered the seafood on an old motorbike, and managed to earn money during the pandemic.
The fisherman initially sold his seafood at the same price as the middleman was paying him. Soon he realised that people in the nearby town were willing to pay a little higher, so he is now earning more money.
What will happen to him if the TikTok ecommerce platform is banned?
The Communications and Digital Ministry should approach the issue from the perspective of the common people rather than businesses. On their part, the latter should innovate their way of doing business instead of preventing the man on the street from making some income to improve their standard of living.
CHAN WAI KEONG
Petaling Jaya
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