An a non-American the level of anti-TikTok sentiment seems really weird, it really does just seem like sinophobia - especially given there's no proof that TikTok is actually being used by the Chinese, whereas Snowden etc. has shown us that the USA already does stuff like this.
I'm not really sure what the People's Liberation Army will do with all my cat videos anyway...
> TikTok has been seeking to assure U.S. government departments and agencies for the last three years that the personal data of U.S citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China's Communist Party or any other entity under the influence of that country's government.
Huh? They already admitted the staff in China have access to all the data. And all companies in China are beholden to the CCP so they have access.
Maybe. China also wasn't supposed to have access to US TikTok data but they do. What makes you so sure that they would obey some new privacy law? As much as I'd like better privacy laws, why should US tech giants be punished for what TikTok is doing?
So how are you so sure that TikTok doesn't sell the data to the US anyway?
This way the same thing happens and china did also make some money. I don't see the argument that china having your data is somehow better than your government.
Tiktok has been used by the Chinese gov just like the U.S gov has been using its own internet companies(i.e apple, microsoft, google, meta etc). We already know from Snowden. I really dont understand why people act surprised.
If any national or supranational gov(i.e E.U) cares about privacy and security of its citizens it should ban data transfer and data access outside its jurisdiction(i.e require totally separate entity located in each country/jurisdiction). This would be better for taxes and local jobs too.
Probably the issue then is that the US government trusts US companies more than Chinese companies, when they shouldn't. I agree with the parent company that if China wanted this data they could probably get it very easily and they most likely probably have it.
The frustration is that for years, privacy advocates have been trying to find the right set of words to make people understand that it is bad for US companies have so much data on so many Americans. The argument is always dismissed as not being an important issue, or that it's good for rooting out terrorists or pedophiles. But privacy advocates have also been saying this whole time, "what if this data falls into the wrong hands" on deaf ears.
In an ideal world we would ban TikTok but also regulate how user data is obtained, stored, and used by US companies.
The stated issue is that TikTok may share American user data with China and that there’s not any real way for the US to prevent this possibility. So it’s seen as a national security issue that the Chinese govt could track Americans. TikTok has insisted that there’s no way that user data could be shared with the Chinese govt but I think US regulation bodies and intelligence do not buy it.
I don't use TikTok, so I'm not particularly worried about the Chinese government using it to spy on me. What I am worried about is the Chinese government using TikTok to launch influence and misinformation campaigns against US citizens.
I see where you're coming from, but Youtube isn't nearly as opaque as Tiktok. You can actually search for videos on youtube, typically content is longer and has a higher production quality which reduces probability of doom-scrolling. As someone else mentioned, TikTok is intentionally designed to be addictive and gamified, much more so that youtube or facebook.
And, objectively speaking, the US government is far preferable to the CCP. The US has it's issues and has made mistakes in the past, the CCP is still putting Muslims in concentration camps and exercises regular authoritarian controll over it's citizens. Militarily, the US is allied with most EU powers (including France) and generally has good intentions for it's allies. China, on the other hand, finds itself on the outside of most alliances, and considering that even their own people are treated poorly, I can only imagine that their intentions for others are not positive.
American tech companies take your data and sell it to advertisers, I don't like it, but they do. The US government only accesses it if they have a reason to do so and subpoena the specific information needed. The Chinese government? I have no doubt that they're collecting data for much more nefarious purposes. Intelligence indicates that they've been improving their military forces massively in the last several decades. It wouldn't be hard for them to subtly start slipping in propaganda into the tiktok feeds of countries they intend to invade, and then they'll have local-national support.
I think it's easy to look at this and say objectively that it's worse. If Youtube or Facebook were owned by France or Germany I would hold the same belief that tiktok is worse. It's not fear of some mysterious "other", but fear of a proven enemy to freedom and human rights, China.
Just in cast it makes any difference to you, the Chinese government, who collects all the TikTok data, is a bunch of oppressive mass murderers. Say what you will about Facebook, Google, et al., but they haven't come that far yet.
Privacy laws don't fix the TikTok problem. It's wildly popular in the EU just the same. Whatever China is getting out of TikTok in terms of data behind the scenes, they're getting it just the same from the EU as they are the US.
The issue is the fact that Chinese companies have dramatically better access to the US market than American firms have access to the Chinese market. This is a regulatory and trade failure of extreme incompetence that has never been properly addressed by Congress or the President.
If Facebook, X, Pinterest, Reddit, et al. can't exist freely in China, then TikTok doesn't get access to the US (until ByteDance becomes a minority shareholder etc).
Your assertion that "Hence Chinese government has no power over the US subsidiary" is incomplete. Tiktok's policy of sharing user data allows the Chinese government all of the power they need, at least in terms of data collection.
Re: the influence argument your points are stronger, I think. Thompson's article felt a bit like scaremongering there.
They claim US data is not stored in China, though:
> The key personnel responsible for TikTok, including its CEO, Global Chief Security Officer, and General Counsel, are all Americans based in the United States—and therefore are not subject to Chinese law. U.S. content moderation is likewise led by a U.S.-based team and operates independently from China, and, as noted above, the TikTok application stores U.S. user data on servers located in the United States and Singapore.
So the US will still have your data (potentially).
China may not have been proven to use TikTok data specifically, but their track record about human rights and privacy is what it is.
> I'm not really sure what the People's Liberation Army will do with all my cat videos anyway...
Ah, the old "nothing to hide" argument.
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