Not that it personally affects me- I’m not in USA and it’s one of the platforms I dislike the most. But I can’t find a concise explanation for why.
I’ve searched for news articles and those I found either don’t address the reason behind the ban and talk about US politics, or are vague about it, saying it would collect user sensitive data.
I’ve also found lists of countries banning TikTok from government devices, okay I understand that, and some countries banning it completely because of cultural sensitivities, which I doubt is US’ case.
Fair enough. What kind of user sensitive data would it be collecting? Isn’t this what most social media apps do already? What makes TikTok stand out in this regard?
It’s performative posturing by politicians who want to look tough on China and/or have been (or are pretending to be) convinced by TikTok’s competitors that they are a national security threat because they gather lots of data, just like every other app does.
If law makers really wanted to prevent the data being vacuumed up, they could pass meaningful privacy laws, but they own stock in companies that compete with TikTok and that also profit by vacuuming up everyone’s data, so they pretend that it’s just Chinese apps we have to worry about.
Except, since we have no privacy laws, if China wants to get the data, it’s perfectly legal for them to buy it from data brokers. We could enact laws that make what they (and Facebook, and Google, and…and…) are doing is illegal, but data brokers make billions, and politicians enjoy enabling billionaires in their exploitation of the general public. So the ban doesn’t stop China from bring able to get data on American citizens.
What the ban really does is (try to) force TikToks owners (Bytedance) to sell/divest to US companies that will enrich lawmakers and those lobbying the lawmakers.
Ars Technica has some good write-ups on the situation, and Techdirt has far more, and they don’t pull punches. I suspect EFF has something written on the subject too.
My guess is that it leans more with the latter than the former. Tiktoks ascendancy is a challenge to the currently established capitalistic social media systems and it exfiltrates attention and AD revenue out of the country.
I personally believe that the campaign against tiktok is more an issue with rich people ensuring that they remain rich in the future then it is with any actual national security concern.
I don’t use the app myself, this is just the vibe I have picked up from the various articles I have been exposed to about the entire debacle.
They either want to force tiktok to play by the rest of American companies rules or to take it out so that American companies can vacuum up the user space and AD revenue.
It’s very Randian.
I agree, and the evidence is pretty clear about who started the panic, and who benefits from it. That said, it’s clear that Tiktok does have security concerns. They’ve been caught spying on journalists. But that’s a problem with what’s legal in the US of A, not what one company does.
And Bytedance worked on multiple initiatives to make US regulators happy, like moving all data operations to Texas (IIRC, sleepy brain can’t find the links this early) and other acquiescences that actually served security needs, but were inexplicably forgotten and abandoned by people in our end, not theirs.
They already do. Facebook and Google and Apple have all been complicit in genocide, oppression and domestic spying, but that benefits US law enforcement, who lobby against reforms that would prevent it. Those are the rules: hoover up the data and use it however the f#@k they want, selling access to all bidders.
Exactly. Even at the cost of an entire generation of voters’ goodwill. If “security” is the concern, why doesn’t Congress care about repeated breaches like this?
But who are we kidding? If we cared about national security, would we permit a felon and proven fraud to be elected president? Would we be lying naked with bedfellows such as Saudi Arabia? And look at who is putting up the money to buy Tiktok.
Indeed. Government intervention in the economy, crony capitalism, and economic nationalism. A Randian trifecta.