Also, you don't actually need to share your own data to be vulnerable. Some stupid relative sharing their genetic information is enough to have some ideas about you. I'm fortunate that it's hasn't caught on in my home country.
They were physically relocated to the US so that the US can access the data, as people like Edward Snowden and Mark Klein have shown us. I’m sure the US knows precisely what data is and isn’t being sent to China.
I would say make laws about data collection, usage, etc. instead of banning TikTok.
Heck, fix more important problems like income disparity, hunger, homelessness, healthcare, our wasteful spending, so many things more important and yet we're wasting time on TikTok.
I don't think people think this is a good use of time.
Seriously, it's government overreach and ignoring freedom of speech, etc.
We can agree that there is at least a slight difference in having your own (or a friendly nation’s) Government tracking you, versus allowing a competing nation to have direct access to over half of the adult US population (as per their recent push-notification stunt), as well as a robust collection of their interests and preferences.
There is a reason China has banned most US-based software in the mainland (Meta, Google, etc.); in favour of self-developed alternatives. This is just treatment in kind; it’s not an outright ban, rather a forced sale to prevent more of that user data falling into dubious hands.
I'm not really ok with that type of anti other country behavior in (edit to add the word: almost) any case. Heck, I want cheap Chinese EV options in the US too.
Make government (and other) tracking opt-out-able by law. That is the law we need. Not this bs version.
This current bill literally sounds like it's written by American companies to squash a foreign competition. You know Facebook, YouTube, etc. are biting at the teeth for more users (and ad revenue) of short form content; especially if TikTok users scattered to other platforms.
Once again: give users the freedom to chose what they want. This is a government overreach.
Yes, there is a difference. Having your own government spy on you is way worse because it has the monopoly on violence over you. No one protects you from that. But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences.
There is a reason for the outrage when PRISM came out of the closet.
How come every thread I see about this topic, there is nobody who is concerned about letting the federal government dictate which apps you can and cannot use to communicate with other people? This is some 1984 shit.
Apps are a Service and services have been and are regulated for decades now and the system have been always arbitrary as fuck.
In the case of TikTok, the west, as a military alliance, should be concerned due to the nature of current valid Chinese laws and the implications of it.
And e.g. facebook has proven that they don't like to stick to rules about how to handle data. In case of TikTok, this could easily have bigger implications for e.g. the American military.
At first I thought you were being serious, but I think this is a joke? That Americans don't care how many companies spy on them as long as it's not the government?
Which, is laughable because of course the government has contacts at everyone one of these companies and they'd gladly hand over your data then go to court to protect it
All of the US corporate social media platforms are part of the US military-industrial-intellegence complex. Look at their boards of directors and executives. Look at the Twitter Files. Look Hamilton 68.
You're also misunderstanding. I won't deny that US companies seek profit wherever they can, even from unethical sources. I also don't doubt their involvement with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But a company seeking profit through a partnership with the United States federal government is not the same as the totalitarian Chinese government requiring oversight of Chinese companies.
It might not seem like a big difference to you, but it's an important one to me.
This meme is a bit dishonest because its about Chinese government harvesting this data not about companies harvesting it. Both are bad but ones substantially worse.
So much data to infer from your music tastes. Listening to music about breakup? You had a breakup yourself. Listening to classical music? You're a top earner. Listening to Eminem? You like mom's spaghetti.
Spying on user data is a constitutional right of US companies, what are the poor going to live on when they can't traffic with your data, or when a disgusting red communist company steals their bread? A little more proper patriotism, guys. Bad enough that the EU is cutting the wings of this companies, therefore also don't use EU apps to make America great again.
Makes me remember when UK and France invaded China and forced then to commercialize opium and destroy their country:
"The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and Britain. It was triggered by the Chinese government's campaign to enforce its prohibition of opium, which included destroying opium stocks owned by British merchants and the British East India Company. The British government responded by sending a naval expedition to force the Chinese government to pay reparations and allow the opium trade.[1] The Second Opium War was waged by Britain and France against China from 1856 to 1860, and consequently resulted in China being forced to legalise opium."