As someone in the US who has had their private data leaked multiple times (ive lost count) and is extremely careful when browsing you tube as to not be drawn into a conspiracy ridden rabbit hole, I’m not sure what the point of this tik tok ban is. To me tik tok is social media business as usual. If congress is going to go this hard on a social media company and privacy concerns they should be doing this with all the other companies that pry into our private lives and try their best to manipulate us as well (car makers, appliance manufactures, phone makers, wearbales, ect…) otherwise to me this comes across as the US congress extorting a single company to make billionaires richer. It has been shown time and time again that even US based social media companies are vulnerable to influencing conspiracy theorists and swaying the votes of thousands of people.I feel like we are at the pinnacle of technological ignorance here. Thoughts?
It’s not because it’s a big tech company.
It’s because the Chinese government controls it.
Let’s be honest: It’s because no US company, and therefore no US politicians, get a dime.
It’s because China is a hostile power who openly abuses its power to use tech to abuse its citizens, and the way their government works, has far more control over companies in their country than most of the rest of the world. Citizens are at much greater risk with their data on Chinese servers than they are with their data on US servers. It’s not that complicated. China outright requires everything to stay in China in the reverse case.
Should they also regulate data collection generally? Absolutely. But TikTok is different.