Watching from Europe I have no idea what the problem is. The US spies on our data, the CCP spies on our data. I can see why the US government might worry that they can’t access the data (except TikTok runs its servers on Oracle databases in the US just to satisfy them). But I don’t understand why the citizens of the US would support tightening the monopoly to just Facebook and Google.
It’s not just about data and spying, it’s also about media and influence. The argument being made that it’s not a good idea to have a “hostile” nation effectively controlling one of the major/dominant social media platforms.
There is also the trade issue of reciprocity, China bans many if not most of the western platforms, while they have free rein to operate theirs in the west.
Its actually also a media problem. For example, the largest Tiktok account of a german politician belongs to Maximilian Krah, of the far right party AFD. Just yesterday it was revealed that his personal assistant is actually a Chinese spy. Krah himself voiced a lot of pro-Chinese opinions before, like being pro annexation of Taiwan and denying the genocide on the uigyurs.
This begs the question if his Tiktok popularity is based on a non-biased algorithm or if the CCP made a deal with him, boosting his Tiktok popularity in exchange for being pro-China.
Yeah well, it’s not like it’s beneath the US government to do the same thing. Remember Cambridge analytica, or the Snowden leaks? My point being, as far as I’m concerned as a citizen, banning TikTok just transfers power to a more concentrated group of actors. That makes the problem worse.
Watching from Europe I have no idea what the problem is. The US spies on our data, the CCP spies on our data. I can see why the US government might worry that they can’t access the data (except TikTok runs its servers on Oracle databases in the US just to satisfy them). But I don’t understand why the citizens of the US would support tightening the monopoly to just Facebook and Google.
It’s not just about data and spying, it’s also about media and influence. The argument being made that it’s not a good idea to have a “hostile” nation effectively controlling one of the major/dominant social media platforms.
There is also the trade issue of reciprocity, China bans many if not most of the western platforms, while they have free rein to operate theirs in the west.
Its actually also a media problem. For example, the largest Tiktok account of a german politician belongs to Maximilian Krah, of the far right party AFD. Just yesterday it was revealed that his personal assistant is actually a Chinese spy. Krah himself voiced a lot of pro-Chinese opinions before, like being pro annexation of Taiwan and denying the genocide on the uigyurs.
This begs the question if his Tiktok popularity is based on a non-biased algorithm or if the CCP made a deal with him, boosting his Tiktok popularity in exchange for being pro-China.
Yeah well, it’s not like it’s beneath the US government to do the same thing. Remember Cambridge analytica, or the Snowden leaks? My point being, as far as I’m concerned as a citizen, banning TikTok just transfers power to a more concentrated group of actors. That makes the problem worse.