cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12876226
The measure that sailed unanimously through the House Energy and Commerce Committee would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform — used by roughly 170 million Americans — is quickly spun off from its China-linked parent company, ByteDance.
US officials have cited the widespread commercial availability of US citizens’ data as another source of national security risk. The US government and other domestic law enforcement agencies are also known to have purchased US citizens’ data from commercial data brokers.
Fuck your whatsboutism. This is good news; tiktok is a propaganda machine.
The cyber security professional inside of me wants to agree with you. The Liberal in me doesn’t want to give the government the authority to ban speech and what citizens are allowed to watch.
It’s proven propaganda. And a proven method of spying/gathering info.
I’m fine with the government removing it.
So you’re going to shut down YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc as well right? Considering they all do the same thing and FB even interfered in an election?
If they start stealing information for china? Yes. I’d suggest we shut them down too.
See? I’m not so reliant on social media that I’m willing to sacrifice my security for them.
Then do so. This idea that tiktok is any worse because it’s Chinese is ridiculous.
Either the propaganda is working or there’s no hope for any of us. And I’m not saying this facetiously.
The idea of a company in China versus in the West is very different. In the West a company has near complete autonomy within the confines of law in the democratic country it’s in. In China, a company is completely beholden to the will of the CCP. Smaller companies are not worth getting involved with, but larger companies like Bytedance and Baidu are effectively corporate offices of the CCP.
We’re talking about a communist dictatorship that’s constantly threatening Taiwan with invasion and death threats. Goes around the South China Sea harassing the countries there by attacking their military and civilian ships with high power water cannons. Putting nets and markers right up against those same countries, in some instances within 50 or so kilometers. Then there’s the ongoing genocide of the Uyghur people. The constant suppression of any negative news. The complete isolation of its people from accessing the internet or news from the rest of the world. It just goes on.
China is an adversarial power to Western nations and even many Asian ones.
The issue isn’t that Bytedance is simply Chinese. The issue is that China does not allow a single bit of information leaving its borders without its explicit say so. Which is why any Chinese company that conducts any business outside China has CCP officials stationed at the company’s offices and have to examine and approve everything that goes out.
So what’s the difference between the CCP getting it for free from Tiktok and paying for it from an “American” corporation?
None of what you said matters in this. Not when Zuckerberg is specifically courting China to spend advertising dollars and buy data.
Is the money changing hands making the end effect any different?
TikTok is both a sacrifice to make it look like something is being done and a called hit on a competitor.
Whataboutism at its finest.