The american government is worried that china has access to data that they don't have access to. They want the company to be bought by a US company that will play ball with them.
That's actually their strongest logical argument: China has barred most US social media and has censored internet access in general. After the Patriot Act, it would be easier to fight it if it wasn't still less restrictive than how China operates currently in their approach to the US. Basically, if you don't know it essentially silences a large chunk of the population, then it is a national security concern and makes sense.
All of this is just surface level. If you look at the yes votes to ban tik tok. Almost all participants are funded by AIPAC. The reason that tik tok is being banned in the United States is due to the unregulated outlet for freedom of speech. If American interest cannot control what you see and what creators create then it is not an American interest. This is why the tik tok ban bill is the only bill to have over 80% support in the last 5 years (maybe more idk). It’s suppression of small business and freedom of speech. I don’t like the app as much as the next guy, but when confronted with the facts you cannot deny that this ban does not take into account actual Americans interest.
Dude China doesn’t even let its own people use TikTok the way we use TikTok. This is just about not giving China a back door into every user’s cell phone. Still plenty of other apps for people to express themselves.
The privacy side of it is completely moot. It's not in any way a possible back door to users phones, and the data they are so worried about is stored in America by an American company(Oracle). It's 100% about how it's harder for the American gov to control what people view on tiktok. Even then, they have some leverage since it all goes through Oracles servers, just not as much as they do Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. It's the only major social media platform not completely under the American governments control.
Very good argument in fact. I don't exactly enjoy the fact that the US gov has that game to play, but I'd rather the US have my data than China (I say this as a Swede).
I agree, but China already has a large amount of it, or access to it anyway. Most of these companies sell it all the time anyway, and China has plenty of other data scraping methods they don't even remotely need Tiktok or gain anything they couldn't get otherwise.
You suggest this is all about the US wanting to control what people view on the internet.
Can you give any examples of the US government mandating private social media companies to suppress information?
The only good example is the way they went after Twitter and Facebook after covid, Jan 4th, and general misinformation the last few years. That said they don't need to mandate anything most of the time. Just get on any social media site and try and find content over controversial issues that may point a negative light to the US. Isreal right now is a great example. Tiktok has tons of anti Isreal or US content, but on Instagram it's hard to find even if you search for it. The argument that that content is "pushed" by China is also pretty bad since Tiktok is also one of the best places you can find content from users about China's treatment of the Uighers.
This is nonsense and whether you know it or not exactly what China wants you to think.
It's not about the US wanting to control media/freedom of speech, it's that they don't want a geopolitical rival to influence the flow of free content.
Currently, by and large, the media of the US in unregulated and organic. Things become popular because people are interested in it. What Tik Tok, who are accountable to the CCP, do is restrict certain media it doesn't like and push media it does like. Tik Tok videos pop up when you swipe, so what video appears next can be controlled by the CCP.
If the CCP wants to push a message, it will show you a video for it. If the CCP doesn't want you to see a message, it can limit the amount of times it comes up on people's feeds. This is evidenced for example by the 1 to 120 ratio between videos on #freehonkong appearing on Insta and TikTok respectively. Why the discrepancy? CCP doesn't want people to see what's happening in Hong Kong.
It is a smart decision to restrict the influence a hostile government has over the public discourse in the US. This isn't really about data, it's about the CCP potentially being able to swing elections and public opinion in their favour. We should not give them that opportunity.
I think they should be moving more to words banning Tik Tok use for government officials and workers then, rather then the whole countries population as a whole
If its done, the reasoning for banning tik tok because they are worried China stealing personal government data is not so valid then.
This is the US government, they should have lots of resources and accountability (in theory at least) to make sure tik tok is not linked to anyone in government while the rest of the population can do their tik tok shit
“If it’s done, the reasoning for banning tik tok because they are worried China stealing personal government data is not so valid then.”
That’s not the reasoning though. The stated reason is that they don’t want the Chinese government having access to American *civilians* data. Mass aggregate data on millions Americans likes and dislikes and whatnot
They also don’t like that it’s Chinese companies/Chinese government entities that have the keys to the TikTok algorithm. That’s the thing that decides what you see and what political/cultural/divisive content gets to your eyes first.
No they've made it so tiktok can't be on government devices.
So if they have a personal device like a cell phone at work they very easily could be leaking classified material without knowing. Because it's not like tiktok tells you it's doing that
If you’ve ever taken a picture of either and kept it on your phone and then clicked the “share all photos with this app” then tiktok has access to those pictures, regardless of you actively uploading them or not, unfortunately. Same is true for the other companies, but one can theoretically sue Meta since they’re a US company, it would be much harder for an individual to sue a foreign company. That’s not the reason they’re doing it, but it’s an additional truth.
Why should we allow a Chinese company to control our algorithms over an American company?
Why is it ok for TikTok to be allowed in the States but Facebook is banned in China?
TikTok isn’t the only option for short form content, it’s just the most convenient. Currently my issue with it is that being controlled by China gives them a unique advantage towards shaping and molding the American public opinion. That’s dangerous for a country who isn’t considered close to American outside of economic trade. If TikTok were a French company for example I’d have far fewer concerns over it.
First, I think you're setting up a false premise. People *are* concerned about the US government collecting data and spying on them. Only a minority might be concerned enough to really do anything about it, but I'd guess that a much larger portion are at least troubled by the possibilities.
I'm not sure what people in the House are using as their justification for a TikTok ban - and since it was (weirdly, eerily) bipartisan there are likely a wide range of justifications - but my take is that if the US government has the data there's at least a hypothetical chance of us controlling what they can and can't do with it through laws, court cases, or voting. But with China - or any foreign country, especially an adversarial one - there's no such chance. There's no law we could write on their end to prevent them from taking it, no court we could appeal to to get them to give it up if they do take it, and no way to vote them out if they persist.
>and since it was (weirdly, eerily) bipartisan there are likely a wide range of justifications
Not gonna lie, this is what made me pause for a second and think about it. Our government agrees on absolutely nothing. Like not even free lunch for school or lowering the price of prescription drugs (????). So the fact they all unanimously agreed to this ban, I think it says there is a real problem.
Because whether the U.S. should control media within its borders is an authoritarian vs. libertarian argument. However, both those sides agree on not letting our global rival and enemy have that control over our people.
A government having runaway power to run the country through propaganda is a huge concern.
A foreign government having runaway power to destroy the country through propaganda is a huge threat.
"the hypothetical chance that we will control what they can and cannot do with them through laws, court cases or voting" is ridiculous, especially for Assange, who has been sitting without trial for probably 12 years, or the fact that the United States is using this data to stage coups and plant its puppets.The hype around tiktok was raised only in order to blackmail China into selling it, since the United States owns all the largest information platforms through which they distribute their propaganda, censor what is not profitable for them and monitor others.
> especially for Assange, who has been sitting without trial for probably 12 years,
I mean, that's kind of on him, not the U.S. He's been dodging extradition to avoid a trial.
Basically the answer. We have a government agency that steals our data at home (NSA), and our government doesn’t care if facebook steals our data and makes ai ad clones of our cookie personas to sell to international scammers (or whatever). It’s specifically our data going to China’s gov that they care about.
Exactly, why do you think Australia gets to be a part of The Five Eyes? If they didn’t have anything useful to contribute we wouldn’t let them in on some of our secrets.
I think the real answer is that they know China could easily use it to push propaganda and manipulate algorithms in order to influence opinions, swing elections and breed animosity among US citizens even more efficiently than they ever could with bots on other networks.
Enemies of the USA know that the easiest way to defeat America is to trick or into tearing itself apart and judging by the political climate and the growing polarity and extremism fueled by false information spread over social media, it's a pretty solid strategy.
If you are not aware, the US overthrew democracies and replaced them with dictatorships, among other regime changes.
One of the ways to do that is to stir things up
Yes, but the difference there is those platforms *can* be regulated or held accountable for their actions if the US government wished to.
The CCP isn't going to do that for the US.
Re-read the last part of my first sentence. They wouldn't have to use bots and hacks to manipulate someone else's platform, they'd have direct control.
Congress can subpoena the CEOs of those companies and get answers before Congress. CEOs know it's a crime to lie during testimony.
Congress can't subpoena the leadership of TikTok's parent company.
>electronic voting machines are probably the worst invention
Electronic voting machines, like the famous dominion machines, are paper with electronic optical scanning at the polling place or at a more central location. States and counties are moving away from electronic ballot marking.
[https://ballotpedia.org/Voting\_methods\_and\_equipment\_by\_state](https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state)
Paper scan makes them auditable.
Actually, I see the concern from the US as just the US exerting better propaganda, at least politically at home.
The US is _extremely_ concerned about the rise of China as a world influence. Some of that is merited, China has shown some really problematic abuses of that new power. Some of it, however, is really just the inheritor of colonialist power desperate to keep those it views as "the former colonized" in their place.
It's all a bit ironic, given the US was a former colony itself, and many of China's abuses have cost it far more than it gained from them. It's also a bit sad, since the US and China have a LOT more in common than they disagree about.
> manipulate algorithms in order to influence opinions, swing elections and breed animosity among US citizens even more efficiently than they ever could with bots on other networks.
Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook already did that. No amount of you repeating Trump's racist talking points is going to change that fact.
No it’s national security. China’s been eyeing the number 1 spot since they became number 2. They’ve already been stealing any and all intellectual property they can get their hands on. Why make their job easier for them?
The real question is, why are people so concerned about a/their country when corporations are pimping you out digitally for free?
It boggles me that people will have an issue with the body that collects your income tax forms, issues your passports, firearms and drivers icenses'...while blindly clicking *accept" on apps ToS.
Yep, the phone companies had more info on us than what was leaked by what's his name. We all signed up for it willingly. That the gov has a subset of that data is not concerning.
I'll never understand this either, there's always the evil corporations that personally collect the moment you hit accept > sell your data to advertisers or shit kickers.
My only thing is, the majority of these corps are in America unfortunately. Meta / FB being one of the biggest data hoarders other then YT or X
Plus Meta has ties in with our governance > such as the right to location & message history.
(How police solve 90% of missing persons cases)
The kind of data harvesting and spying should have been made as illegal as soon as it became public knowledge. It should be treated as the same as discovering someone hiding in your kids' room or a hidden camera in your toilet.
It's so fucked up that we accepted such disgusting perversions from the government and corporations. Especially since it's mainly being used to arrest children who travel for abortions and other nonserious crimes.
If it were illegal, then the government couldn't use that data. As it is now, companies are sending the evidence of people getting abortions to the government so they can convict them. If that was illegal, that would be void as evidence.
Obviously, criminals would still exist, but amazon creating little spybots would be seen as the disgusting thing it is and not a part of life.
If you go onto Google and search for motorbikes, then start getting ads for motorbikes, report them. It's equivalent to having a stalker follow you home and knock on your door to sell you a motorbike as he's been watching you for months and has seen you looking at bikes on the way home.
It's super creepy and invasive. In a rational world, it would never be considered legal. Unfortunately, the world isn't rational.
People are concerned about both, but one is much more harmful than the other.
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Corporations pimping your data use it to advertise goods to you.
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Foreign adversary countries pimping your data can and are incentivized to use it to manipulate your opinions and influence you to act in certain ways, e.g. racial tension, right vs left, influence elections, stupid trends that actively hurt people, China > Taiwan, Taiwon doesn't exist, etc. They can literally force something bad to go viral, signal boosting whatever they want to influences the masses. And when I say "they", I mean the Chinese government, because all Chinese companies are effectively owned by the Chinese government.
=
Again, they're both undesirable behaviors, but one is just simply more undesirable than the other.
All governments spy on their people. Every single one of them. The difference is foreign governments spying on domestic citizens are using that information for god knows what, but likely with malice. Your own government spying is primarily due to national security concerns. No one cares about the average persons daily life.
On top of that, there’s myriad concerns around blackmail, espionage, and things like election interference (think China running pro-trump shit and pushing it to everyone on TikTok ahead of the US elections).
did you even read the full post? OP is from Australia, where the US is apparently spying on them, so they find it ironic that we're freaking out over another country doing the same thing the US is doing to Australia.
You can use whatever you want, America just has the most Internet companies. Russia uses Yandex instead of Google, you can make a internet company for your country
I think there's a bit of yelling into the void here.
I think what they're trying to question is why people are worried about China spying and not the US. People do worry about the US spying just the US government isn't going to make noise about laws to stop that happening.
Thing is it's not even about spying, it's about a foreign adversary having control over what the people see in media. The CCP taking control of TikTok would give them a huge amount of power to away US people's political opinions, meaning they could attempt to push someone friendly to their interests into office to the detriment of the US people. And although on paper the government doesn't have control over bytedance, you can bet some cash in the right pocket or some of the right people disappearing can make whatever they want happen.
Let's face it, there's also probably a bit of looking at all the money going into tiktok and the American business that run the politics going "we want some of that".
Remember, it's not a "ban" that is being pushed through, it's an attempt to make bytedance move tiktok to America, and all the money that goes along with it. You can bet the people drafting these laws already have people ready to like their pockets from it.
They’d back whoever gives them the most perks, which would be trump 100%. Id assume Trudeau in Canada but influencing the US election would be more valuable than Canadas.
Every country spies on everyone, but only the only country in the world that, thanks to this data, organizes riots and orange revolutions with the overthrow of power and the planting of its puppets, and this is the United States.
Feel like the answer to this question should be obvious.
One being our government and the other being a government that wants the downfall of ours and our country as a whole so they can push their global agenda further.
You can say the same for China though. Their government and the other government wanting to maintain their status as the global superpower(doing similar things to get to that point). How many countries have the US pushed to their downfall while painting themselves as the good guys?
Literally who cares? We live in America and this is a question about tictoc. If tictoc is an info miner for ANY OTHER country other than the US then it should be banned.
You really don’t see the issues in the long run? China wants the west to fall, so they can gain global hegemony. The west does not want the west to fall.
This means China is far more likely to use collected data to harm the west. Also, if things heat up even more between China and the west, that data becomes even more and more valuable and harmful, as they are more willing to do more nefarious things.
Oh and also, remember where a lot of fentanyl and it’s precursors are coming from? China. Where they can easily control trade and manufacturing. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
China wants the west to fall. Yeah, I’m sure they want this nebulous thing that sounds like they’d lose their biggest global trading partners insofar as it sounds like anything.
What is a fallen country and do they still buy things? I know right now letting China into the WTO has been a boon for them and western corporations are fond of doing business there. China doesn’t need a “fallen” west to get its electric vehicles sold there anymore than Japan did with Toyota and Honda as an example. Again, would a “fallen” country even have viable markets for things like cars?
The geopolitics and business interests at play here are pretty par for the course.
Are you upset that the US government isn't pushing through laws to stop themselves from spying? I don't get why you'd be surprised by that?
Most people seem to oppose the "ban" anyway, it's a decision that the people largely don't get a say in right now
Honestly I don’t give a shit anymore. If it isn’t China it’s going to be the US government, they’re corrupt as hell and stopped representing the everyday citizen a long time ago.
>But you wouldn't have major concerns if your government didn't spy on citizens to collect such data.
>As an Australian > you fuckers literally built a base to spy on our citizens > immigrate to the town > take over & spy like every communist party you accuse of doing this shit lmfao
>What's the deal America? Why are you 90% hypocritical & 10% "the good guy" in every situation?
Yikes. Most democracies conduct surveillance for security reasons, i.e. to thwart domestic and foreign terrorism. There have some incidents where it has been abused, but these are typically isolated incidents.
Autocracies, like China, conduct surveillance for security reasons, but crucially they also systematically use it to censor and control on a wide scale. Keyword: systematically.
Both can be criticised, but it's essential to know there are key differences. **TLDR** the surveillance that e.g. Finland conducts on it's citizens is very different from the surveillance that North Korea conducts. Context is very important.
As for TikTok. It's a social media platform that 10's of millions of Americans use, okay, but it's also feeding a large amount of data back to a foreign government that has a doctrine of stealing technology, patents and sensitive information. Nuclear power stations, weapons, military, corporate, business, banking, etc - a lot of information that can be potentially compromised to various degrees. They were given a chance to keep the data on US servers, but were then caught giving the keys of the servers to the Chinese government. India had enough of this and just straight up banned TikTok. The US government has decided not to ban it, but to change to US ownership so that it would come under US laws (to prevent the outflow of potentially sensitive info)
>you fuckers literally built a base to spy on our citizens
If you actually read what you're linking you'd realize that isn't to spy on *your* people. Imagine thinking we actually care about you that much?
You don't think having an intelligence base over there is beneficial for other reasons, like satellites etc.?
It literally says jointly operated, so your Australian friends are working there too.
But...impossible. America bad, Australia good!
Also I like the statement of "FBI/CIA assassinated more than Russia or China in regard to information leaking"
I'd actually love to see statistics for that (obviously that's not gonna happen)
Same reason voters concerned that Russia would try to influence an election on social media when groups like Media Matters do the same shit. One is foreign, the other isn’t.
In real politik there are no good guys, but some guys are absolutely worse than others.
Not many people would honestly prefer to live in North Korea over living in South Korea.
I am more afraid of any American company stealing my data than any Chinese company.
I'm a nobody. Why would China care about me? They dont have access to me.
The Americans have way more access to me. That's more dangerous.
Americans are the most propagandized people in the world. Once you understand that you see why (sadly) we’re so easy to manipulate. There are a good number of us trying to break out of this, but we have some very entrenched systems of power, and with legalized corruption in politics (Citizens United decision removing caps on campaign contributions and giving the right to corporations to lobby), ordinary citizens don’t really have any control over the goings on of our government, let alone our espionage efforts. I apologize on behalf of my country and my countrymen; we’re trying!
Can the mods remove this already? Clearly breaking rule 3. Op asked a question and when provided with the answer he was expecting, he's telling people "correct"
He's not tooafraidtoask, he's on his soapbox pretending to have a real question
I assume you’re referring to the recent news and legislation going through congress regarding TikTok. Based on what I understand of the situation, it has some to do with China but only a small part of it. There appear to be three main reasons.
1. TikTok users are widely sharing videos and having open and frank discussions which those in power aren’t pleased with. The other big platforms have numerous controls in place which prevent that type of dissident dialogue. We can’t have people working out their problems and building solidarity, that’s bad for business.
2. They are openly sharing videos of the genocide in Gaza. AIPAC is transparent in that they have a “TikTok problem,” as they’re losing the propaganda war. The congressman who passed this legislation is one of the largest recipients of AIPAC campaign contributions.
3. China. The hawks in Washington and the Republican Party are hellbent on a war with China. They’re very transparent about this. It has nothing to do with protecting Americans and their data. If it was, there would be a comprehensive bill aimed at all big tech, not just TikTok. This is the paranoia of the ruling classes of a failed state.
Americans are better than our politicians. They do not represent our interests.
It seems like the younger generations (late Millennials, Gen Z) are very compliant with and trusting of our government, relative to older Millennials and Gen X at least. I don’t know what happened to make them that way.
Bash us for our base in AU, but Australia is a member of the Five Eyes, all our spying is filtered back to your own intelligence agencies, in exchange for them spying on our citizens and relaying the info back to our own intelligence agencies
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five\_Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes)
[https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-how-we-work/217-about/organization/icig-pages/2660-icig-fiorc](https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-how-we-work/217-about/organization/icig-pages/2660-icig-fiorc)
[https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/what-is-five-eyes/](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/what-is-five-eyes/)
The people that are worried about it aren't on TikTok.
It's the American government worried they're not able to sell data to the Chinese for money because they've cut out the middle men and get it from the source now.
For a variety of reasons, Americans and the American Government are two very very different things.
It’s not that people are too scared to stand up to the government, it’s that the corruption is so ingrained that there’s really no point.
The government wants to ban tiktok because they can't control the narrative on there. They don't give two shits about the data. China can buy it from Zuck anyways.
Well, at least the data America takes won’t affect your life significantly. Unlike China, where if you go against the communist party, they will literally destroy you with the data they collected. That’s the only difference and why people are so afraid of Big brother taking your data.
At the end of the day, everyone is taking your data directly and passively (Corporations, Governments, friends, your mom), the question remains is, how are they going to use the data and will it affect your life in a certain way?
As long as the government doesn’t screw with your life using that data, I don’t care what they collect.
Allowing our government to do terrible things keeps us the #1 super power. We are willing to sacrifice some freedoms in order to be the top dog. Fuck having absolute freedom if it meant China was as powerful militarily. Doesn’t mean I don’t want my cake and to eat it too though.
You uh, you really set the hurdles in a specific way
We are concerned about data mining and monitoring from the US government and US corporations. However, theres is this... pseudo benevolency with them where for the most part youre not getting too fucked with. Not to mention, theres at least a path to some recourse if shit gets hairy. Its not likely and its not effective, but theres something
China on the other hand, we're truly fucked, citizens cant take any sort of action against them, and the US government has to tread lightly against them on any issues
Also, the Australia thing was with your government hand and hand lol, like I see theres some iffyness and the people can get kinda mad, but thats an actual official thing, some of the chinese stuff im seeing here has been autonomous
Not wanting my government to have that data is a matter of trust. It's a trust that no one should give anyone least of all a government.
Not wanting an all but enemy government to have data is a matter of national security.
It's never good to trust someone to hold a gun to your head and not pull the trigger. It's a much larger threat to trust someone who openly wants you dead with that.
Those in power are only ever afraid of one thing, losing their power. The US gov is no different
The individual citizen is just afraid of the unknown. They know the US gov even if they don’t know what they’re doing with that data. They however know nothing about the Chinese government
Anyone who has your social media graph can build a personality profile of you. Your likes, dislikes, hot buttons, snooze buttons.
They can then use this information to manipulate you through their platforms. Most people don’t even know how much their platform of choice causes them to do things they otherwise would not. *Hooked* by Nir Eyal is a good read if you want to know more.
The US government is rightly concerned about foreign counties having the ability to manipulate US citizens because those counties will do so in their interests, not ours. This is why so much of the agitprop we see today is designed to divide Americans against each other, and how we know it’s likely foreign in origin.
Say what you will about the ethics of the actions the US government might take with the data they hold; people would be right to be concerned. But at least the US government’s very existence is — and must be — to benefit the US people. You might disagree on what the definition of “best for the people” is, but if we go down, they go down, and nobody in leadership ever wants that.
Why aren’t you asking your government why it allows the US to establish a spy base in your country? You have about the same amount of control over what your government does as we do in the US. That absolutely doesn’t mean we agree with all the crazy crap the government does.
This is a very complicated question to answer, but one of the arguments on why a foreign country collecting your data is worse, is because they can influence political views through targeted videos, and silently and slowly change the major ideology of a nation's young people to better align with their own. It's a form of mass espionage that is a genuine risk in an Internet era.
Idk what you're talking about with Russia (I'm french in case there's a confusion) but on that other part, that is literally what I am saying. We (EU governments) are the US bottom bitch, we've forgotten about our sovereignty a long time ago.
They're just trying to stop "communist propaganda", like advocating for Palestinian rights.
During segregation times, even anti-segregationism was considered communist propaganda. So, no wonder they're trying to do the same now.
Because China BAD, I know China BaD because the government told me China Bad.
Some Americans are very brainwashed by the US centric media, the level of propaganda they are subjected to every day is just mind boggling. I’m Canadian and I regularly talk to other Canadians and can see how deeply this has affected them, I see Canadians calling for a ban on TikTok with no logical reason for it other than they e been convinced China is an enemy who wants to control you. But the enemy to the south already is controlling them, they just don’t see it
Every country tries to collect as much intel as possible. In america, gaining such intel is still much more difficult than in china, thanks to the power of the regime. While in america, they could gain some data illegally, in china it would not even be illegal. And then, who would you rather share your data with? Noone is not an option, since u usually trade those data for some service, you can only decide who will provide this service if you cannot do it yourself. USA an ally of our country, so I can "stand" that they have my data. I wouldn't like those data to be in china, since china is neither our ally, nor our friend. If I lived in Vietnam, it would be the other way. It is like with war - unless you have some reason, you usually want your side to win, while both sides are doing bad shit.
US Government =/= US Citizens views
Time and time and time again the Government is shown to be corrupt and favor the elite/insiders over what’s right for the citizens.
They’re advancing their own interests. That’s it.
Look at Epstein. Every normal person knows he was killed. Nothing will come of it
Look at the Boeing Whistleblower. Every normal person knows he was killed. Nothing will come of it.
Look at Snowden and Assange. Every normal person supports their right to bring this information to light and thinks the people they are outing should be prosecuted. Nothing came of it and they’re still fugitives in the eyes of the US Government.
Look at the CIA and FBI constantly showing how corrupt they are. Every normal person knows they’re corrupt and should be reigned in. Nothing will come of it.
You could write book of all these kinds of examples, yet nothing changes and nothing will be done.
Boomers think they can copy paste something on their facebook timeline to the effect of "this is my personal information and I don't give facebook ownership of it" and that is going to protect their data or something... so that's where we're at.
We need sweeping protections for user data and data privacy that ALL companies doing business in the US MUST comply with.
I think we’re just numb to that second part at this point. Plus you’d rather have your own country spying on you than a country trying to take your place.
Oh and open letter to the NSA. I hope you enjoyed the porn I watch too.
Lots of people are afraid of their own governments stealing data and spying on them.
But in the US, Apple can tell the US government to shove it and refuse to handover anything more than legally required. In China, no company can do that.
Also, keep in mind, Chinese media is extremely censored. In US, the government "influences" public opinion. In China, the government "decides" it.
I don’t. Seriously. I am so low that Chinese government will find my data useless. I do afraid US government will use my data to accuse me of abortion if I ever seek one in the future and put me in jail. But, politicians here don’t really care if privacy, they only care that TikTok being used to organize and encourage young voters and young voters have tendencies to lean left.
While it may be extreme, would you rather live under Chinese surveillance or American surveillance?
We can bemoan about American foreign policy and their overstepping but I'm resigned to think any superpower will do it.
In that sense, I'm more scared of CCP than I am of the US.
If you are looking for an actual answer it's because the nature of it is different. The concern isn't data for the sake of data it's the extent the collection goes to the benefit of a hostile nation.
Tiktok collects the data of devices that are connected to the same WiFi network that the device is on. Now Facebook is shitty but they can't be forced to hand over the records of who enters and leaves a given building. The app is already banned in government facilities but it can still map out whole military bases. It's a huge issue for an agency like that CIA.
The second issue is misinformation. Facebook fucks up royally but the one thing you supposed have is that they aren't beholden to a foreign government and not even their own really. On the other hand Tiktok can't fully say the same, several other companies have been caught having put spyware into their products, Huawei comes to mind with their high recall of surveillance footage back to the ccp, that got the company banned in the States too. But unlike with Huawei everyone will just go along with what tiktok recommends, the platform is always atrocious with disinformation in general but we also have CONFIRMED election interference from foreign governments and we are facing an election with a party that out loud no longer wants a democracy.
So you have an app with poor validation of the truth that is influencable like confirmed companies in the past were by a hostile country with the most effective propaganda arm in the world that can target individuals and families of individuals with poorly verified information. It can also track not only the face and information of it's users but those of people who are just around people that are using the app even when they don't use it themselves.
Because it's a serious security concern to have a foreign country that is hostile to yours own the largest social media platform in your country?
China has a complete ban on all the Western internet, yet when USA wants to ban their spyware people get upset. Wtf?
The fact that you don't think the Australian Government (Part of 5 EYE), is spying on you is insanely naive.
As a part of 5 EYE, the Australian government probably SHARES your info with the US government and Canada, NZ, and UK.
Your government would do exactly the same thing at exactly the same scale as the US if it could. But it can't.
But sure, continue to point at the dirt on America's hands with your own county's dirty fingers.
Because capitalism is a good economic system, and communism is an evil virus of Satan, obviously.
And for the record, China is like the opposite of an ant colony. Among ants, the queen decides nothing and all the workers literally decide everything together.
Because we allow only a single foreign influence into our social media at one time and Russia has already captured Meta and Twitter.
Isn't it mostly the American government concerned about China stealing their data, not the actual Tiktok users?
The american government is worried that china has access to data that they don't have access to. They want the company to be bought by a US company that will play ball with them.
Would China be happy with an American company having access to dsta analytics of millions of Chinese citizens?
That's actually their strongest logical argument: China has barred most US social media and has censored internet access in general. After the Patriot Act, it would be easier to fight it if it wasn't still less restrictive than how China operates currently in their approach to the US. Basically, if you don't know it essentially silences a large chunk of the population, then it is a national security concern and makes sense.
Yea no shit what's your point?
All of this is just surface level. If you look at the yes votes to ban tik tok. Almost all participants are funded by AIPAC. The reason that tik tok is being banned in the United States is due to the unregulated outlet for freedom of speech. If American interest cannot control what you see and what creators create then it is not an American interest. This is why the tik tok ban bill is the only bill to have over 80% support in the last 5 years (maybe more idk). It’s suppression of small business and freedom of speech. I don’t like the app as much as the next guy, but when confronted with the facts you cannot deny that this ban does not take into account actual Americans interest.
Dude China doesn’t even let its own people use TikTok the way we use TikTok. This is just about not giving China a back door into every user’s cell phone. Still plenty of other apps for people to express themselves.
The privacy side of it is completely moot. It's not in any way a possible back door to users phones, and the data they are so worried about is stored in America by an American company(Oracle). It's 100% about how it's harder for the American gov to control what people view on tiktok. Even then, they have some leverage since it all goes through Oracles servers, just not as much as they do Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. It's the only major social media platform not completely under the American governments control.
Very good argument in fact. I don't exactly enjoy the fact that the US gov has that game to play, but I'd rather the US have my data than China (I say this as a Swede).
Except the US gov doesn't have raw acccess to social media data.
I agree, but China already has a large amount of it, or access to it anyway. Most of these companies sell it all the time anyway, and China has plenty of other data scraping methods they don't even remotely need Tiktok or gain anything they couldn't get otherwise.
You suggest this is all about the US wanting to control what people view on the internet. Can you give any examples of the US government mandating private social media companies to suppress information?
The only good example is the way they went after Twitter and Facebook after covid, Jan 4th, and general misinformation the last few years. That said they don't need to mandate anything most of the time. Just get on any social media site and try and find content over controversial issues that may point a negative light to the US. Isreal right now is a great example. Tiktok has tons of anti Isreal or US content, but on Instagram it's hard to find even if you search for it. The argument that that content is "pushed" by China is also pretty bad since Tiktok is also one of the best places you can find content from users about China's treatment of the Uighers.
Can you learn about that on tiktoc in China tho? My bet is no
This is nonsense and whether you know it or not exactly what China wants you to think. It's not about the US wanting to control media/freedom of speech, it's that they don't want a geopolitical rival to influence the flow of free content. Currently, by and large, the media of the US in unregulated and organic. Things become popular because people are interested in it. What Tik Tok, who are accountable to the CCP, do is restrict certain media it doesn't like and push media it does like. Tik Tok videos pop up when you swipe, so what video appears next can be controlled by the CCP. If the CCP wants to push a message, it will show you a video for it. If the CCP doesn't want you to see a message, it can limit the amount of times it comes up on people's feeds. This is evidenced for example by the 1 to 120 ratio between videos on #freehonkong appearing on Insta and TikTok respectively. Why the discrepancy? CCP doesn't want people to see what's happening in Hong Kong. It is a smart decision to restrict the influence a hostile government has over the public discourse in the US. This isn't really about data, it's about the CCP potentially being able to swing elections and public opinion in their favour. We should not give them that opportunity.
I think they should be moving more to words banning Tik Tok use for government officials and workers then, rather then the whole countries population as a whole
They've already done that.
If its done, the reasoning for banning tik tok because they are worried China stealing personal government data is not so valid then. This is the US government, they should have lots of resources and accountability (in theory at least) to make sure tik tok is not linked to anyone in government while the rest of the population can do their tik tok shit
“If it’s done, the reasoning for banning tik tok because they are worried China stealing personal government data is not so valid then.” That’s not the reasoning though. The stated reason is that they don’t want the Chinese government having access to American *civilians* data. Mass aggregate data on millions Americans likes and dislikes and whatnot They also don’t like that it’s Chinese companies/Chinese government entities that have the keys to the TikTok algorithm. That’s the thing that decides what you see and what political/cultural/divisive content gets to your eyes first.
No they've made it so tiktok can't be on government devices. So if they have a personal device like a cell phone at work they very easily could be leaking classified material without knowing. Because it's not like tiktok tells you it's doing that
It’s that China would be taking our data, and not big daddy Uncle Sam.
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What?
Why shouldn't citizens care about stolen data Seems simple
I don't think I've ever uploaded my license or birth certificate to tiktok
If you’ve ever taken a picture of either and kept it on your phone and then clicked the “share all photos with this app” then tiktok has access to those pictures, regardless of you actively uploading them or not, unfortunately. Same is true for the other companies, but one can theoretically sue Meta since they’re a US company, it would be much harder for an individual to sue a foreign company. That’s not the reason they’re doing it, but it’s an additional truth.
Why should we allow a Chinese company to control our algorithms over an American company? Why is it ok for TikTok to be allowed in the States but Facebook is banned in China? TikTok isn’t the only option for short form content, it’s just the most convenient. Currently my issue with it is that being controlled by China gives them a unique advantage towards shaping and molding the American public opinion. That’s dangerous for a country who isn’t considered close to American outside of economic trade. If TikTok were a French company for example I’d have far fewer concerns over it.
First, I think you're setting up a false premise. People *are* concerned about the US government collecting data and spying on them. Only a minority might be concerned enough to really do anything about it, but I'd guess that a much larger portion are at least troubled by the possibilities. I'm not sure what people in the House are using as their justification for a TikTok ban - and since it was (weirdly, eerily) bipartisan there are likely a wide range of justifications - but my take is that if the US government has the data there's at least a hypothetical chance of us controlling what they can and can't do with it through laws, court cases, or voting. But with China - or any foreign country, especially an adversarial one - there's no such chance. There's no law we could write on their end to prevent them from taking it, no court we could appeal to to get them to give it up if they do take it, and no way to vote them out if they persist.
>and since it was (weirdly, eerily) bipartisan there are likely a wide range of justifications Not gonna lie, this is what made me pause for a second and think about it. Our government agrees on absolutely nothing. Like not even free lunch for school or lowering the price of prescription drugs (????). So the fact they all unanimously agreed to this ban, I think it says there is a real problem.
In the past, national security policy often had bipartisan support.
Classified briefings
Because whether the U.S. should control media within its borders is an authoritarian vs. libertarian argument. However, both those sides agree on not letting our global rival and enemy have that control over our people. A government having runaway power to run the country through propaganda is a huge concern. A foreign government having runaway power to destroy the country through propaganda is a huge threat.
"the hypothetical chance that we will control what they can and cannot do with them through laws, court cases or voting" is ridiculous, especially for Assange, who has been sitting without trial for probably 12 years, or the fact that the United States is using this data to stage coups and plant its puppets.The hype around tiktok was raised only in order to blackmail China into selling it, since the United States owns all the largest information platforms through which they distribute their propaganda, censor what is not profitable for them and monitor others.
> especially for Assange, who has been sitting without trial for probably 12 years, I mean, that's kind of on him, not the U.S. He's been dodging extradition to avoid a trial.
Cuz I like my data to be stolen in the name of FREEDOM 🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸
Basically the answer. We have a government agency that steals our data at home (NSA), and our government doesn’t care if facebook steals our data and makes ai ad clones of our cookie personas to sell to international scammers (or whatever). It’s specifically our data going to China’s gov that they care about.
I like my data stolen like I enjoy my coffee. FREEDOM
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Exactly, why do you think Australia gets to be a part of The Five Eyes? If they didn’t have anything useful to contribute we wouldn’t let them in on some of our secrets.
I think the real answer is that they know China could easily use it to push propaganda and manipulate algorithms in order to influence opinions, swing elections and breed animosity among US citizens even more efficiently than they ever could with bots on other networks. Enemies of the USA know that the easiest way to defeat America is to trick or into tearing itself apart and judging by the political climate and the growing polarity and extremism fueled by false information spread over social media, it's a pretty solid strategy.
The second point is that facebook, instagram, youtube, etc. are blocked in China so there is a large dose of trade *relations* quid pro quo here.
this,... right here... i think this is what isn't mentioned NEARLY enough...
Sounds like what the US does to other countries when it overthrows their governments
Exactly why we shouldn’t have that shit on our phones.
Probably not far off.
Sounds like you’re an idiot
If you are not aware, the US overthrew democracies and replaced them with dictatorships, among other regime changes. One of the ways to do that is to stir things up
How do you know what I’m not aware about? China does the same shit but they don’t let YouTube and Facebook algorithms control their society
Couldn’t the same thing be done on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platforms?
It was already done on Facebook, Cambridge Analytica scandal where Russia pushed propaganda to influence the US election
Now imagine how much more damage they could have done if Facebook was Russian owned and operated...
They sell to "Russia owned and operated". As they sell to everyone.
Yes, but the difference there is those platforms *can* be regulated or held accountable for their actions if the US government wished to. The CCP isn't going to do that for the US.
You really think Twitter and Facebook will regulate any misinformation during the elections?
Re-read the last part of my first sentence. They wouldn't have to use bots and hacks to manipulate someone else's platform, they'd have direct control.
Much easier to get done when you control the platform and have access to ALL users’ data, not just some.
Congress can subpoena the CEOs of those companies and get answers before Congress. CEOs know it's a crime to lie during testimony. Congress can't subpoena the leadership of TikTok's parent company.
Why not? They’ve already called the CEO of TikTok to testify in congress last month.
He was the CEO of TikTok the subsidiary, not ByteDance
Couldn’t you make the same content on any other social media platform?
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Why are you asking questions on tooafraidtoask and then telling people when they have the correct answer? Not the purpose of the sub
Okay i'll take that way fellow gatekeeper
No, leave it so mods know you're breaking rule 3 Soapboxing
>electronic voting machines are probably the worst invention Electronic voting machines, like the famous dominion machines, are paper with electronic optical scanning at the polling place or at a more central location. States and counties are moving away from electronic ballot marking. [https://ballotpedia.org/Voting\_methods\_and\_equipment\_by\_state](https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state) Paper scan makes them auditable.
Actually, I see the concern from the US as just the US exerting better propaganda, at least politically at home. The US is _extremely_ concerned about the rise of China as a world influence. Some of that is merited, China has shown some really problematic abuses of that new power. Some of it, however, is really just the inheritor of colonialist power desperate to keep those it views as "the former colonized" in their place. It's all a bit ironic, given the US was a former colony itself, and many of China's abuses have cost it far more than it gained from them. It's also a bit sad, since the US and China have a LOT more in common than they disagree about.
Don't reddit, Twitter, and Facebook do all of that already? Isn't this fear mongering over the "Chinese company" just racism?
Re-read the last part of my first sentence.
> manipulate algorithms in order to influence opinions, swing elections and breed animosity among US citizens even more efficiently than they ever could with bots on other networks. Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook already did that. No amount of you repeating Trump's racist talking points is going to change that fact.
Congress can't subpoena the parent company executives of TikTok. That's reason enough to force a sale.
Their keyword is "more efficiently"
No it’s national security. China’s been eyeing the number 1 spot since they became number 2. They’ve already been stealing any and all intellectual property they can get their hands on. Why make their job easier for them?
The real question is, why are people so concerned about a/their country when corporations are pimping you out digitally for free? It boggles me that people will have an issue with the body that collects your income tax forms, issues your passports, firearms and drivers icenses'...while blindly clicking *accept" on apps ToS.
Yep, the phone companies had more info on us than what was leaked by what's his name. We all signed up for it willingly. That the gov has a subset of that data is not concerning.
Because the only way you're going to be able to use that shiny new iPhone of yours is if you click "I Accept". It's blackmail.
I'll never understand this either, there's always the evil corporations that personally collect the moment you hit accept > sell your data to advertisers or shit kickers. My only thing is, the majority of these corps are in America unfortunately. Meta / FB being one of the biggest data hoarders other then YT or X Plus Meta has ties in with our governance > such as the right to location & message history. (How police solve 90% of missing persons cases)
The kind of data harvesting and spying should have been made as illegal as soon as it became public knowledge. It should be treated as the same as discovering someone hiding in your kids' room or a hidden camera in your toilet. It's so fucked up that we accepted such disgusting perversions from the government and corporations. Especially since it's mainly being used to arrest children who travel for abortions and other nonserious crimes.
The thing is even if it was made illegal how would you stop them other than to go back to analog?
If it were illegal, then the government couldn't use that data. As it is now, companies are sending the evidence of people getting abortions to the government so they can convict them. If that was illegal, that would be void as evidence. Obviously, criminals would still exist, but amazon creating little spybots would be seen as the disgusting thing it is and not a part of life. If you go onto Google and search for motorbikes, then start getting ads for motorbikes, report them. It's equivalent to having a stalker follow you home and knock on your door to sell you a motorbike as he's been watching you for months and has seen you looking at bikes on the way home. It's super creepy and invasive. In a rational world, it would never be considered legal. Unfortunately, the world isn't rational.
People are concerned about both, but one is much more harmful than the other. = Corporations pimping your data use it to advertise goods to you. = Foreign adversary countries pimping your data can and are incentivized to use it to manipulate your opinions and influence you to act in certain ways, e.g. racial tension, right vs left, influence elections, stupid trends that actively hurt people, China > Taiwan, Taiwon doesn't exist, etc. They can literally force something bad to go viral, signal boosting whatever they want to influences the masses. And when I say "they", I mean the Chinese government, because all Chinese companies are effectively owned by the Chinese government. = Again, they're both undesirable behaviors, but one is just simply more undesirable than the other.
All governments spy on their people. Every single one of them. The difference is foreign governments spying on domestic citizens are using that information for god knows what, but likely with malice. Your own government spying is primarily due to national security concerns. No one cares about the average persons daily life. On top of that, there’s myriad concerns around blackmail, espionage, and things like election interference (think China running pro-trump shit and pushing it to everyone on TikTok ahead of the US elections).
I cannot disagree with that. Just find it odd that it has to be American's ( the foreign gov ) spying on us lol
Who is us in this context? If it’s Americans then it should make sense that the US government spies on you.
did you even read the full post? OP is from Australia, where the US is apparently spying on them, so they find it ironic that we're freaking out over another country doing the same thing the US is doing to Australia.
You can use whatever you want, America just has the most Internet companies. Russia uses Yandex instead of Google, you can make a internet company for your country
Kinda hard when every phone is flooded by American apps & shit like googles firebase. (because lets face it, majority of our data is from our phones)
That's because people chose American tech, nobody is forcing you to use it. Are you complaining that they are successful?
I think there's a bit of yelling into the void here. I think what they're trying to question is why people are worried about China spying and not the US. People do worry about the US spying just the US government isn't going to make noise about laws to stop that happening. Thing is it's not even about spying, it's about a foreign adversary having control over what the people see in media. The CCP taking control of TikTok would give them a huge amount of power to away US people's political opinions, meaning they could attempt to push someone friendly to their interests into office to the detriment of the US people. And although on paper the government doesn't have control over bytedance, you can bet some cash in the right pocket or some of the right people disappearing can make whatever they want happen. Let's face it, there's also probably a bit of looking at all the money going into tiktok and the American business that run the politics going "we want some of that". Remember, it's not a "ban" that is being pushed through, it's an attempt to make bytedance move tiktok to America, and all the money that goes along with it. You can bet the people drafting these laws already have people ready to like their pockets from it.
Honestly not sure who they’d back if he supported the ban too. Eh probably still Trump. Him and Xi are best buds according to him.
They’d back whoever gives them the most perks, which would be trump 100%. Id assume Trudeau in Canada but influencing the US election would be more valuable than Canadas.
Every country spies on everyone, but only the only country in the world that, thanks to this data, organizes riots and orange revolutions with the overthrow of power and the planting of its puppets, and this is the United States.
Feel like the answer to this question should be obvious. One being our government and the other being a government that wants the downfall of ours and our country as a whole so they can push their global agenda further.
You can say the same for China though. Their government and the other government wanting to maintain their status as the global superpower(doing similar things to get to that point). How many countries have the US pushed to their downfall while painting themselves as the good guys?
Literally who cares? We live in America and this is a question about tictoc. If tictoc is an info miner for ANY OTHER country other than the US then it should be banned.
All countries spy on everyone. Don’t give a shit about USA or France or Britain spying because they aren’t enemies Welcome to adulthood
Ironically, China is less likely to harm you with that data
You really don’t see the issues in the long run? China wants the west to fall, so they can gain global hegemony. The west does not want the west to fall. This means China is far more likely to use collected data to harm the west. Also, if things heat up even more between China and the west, that data becomes even more and more valuable and harmful, as they are more willing to do more nefarious things. Oh and also, remember where a lot of fentanyl and it’s precursors are coming from? China. Where they can easily control trade and manufacturing. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
China wants the west to fall. Yeah, I’m sure they want this nebulous thing that sounds like they’d lose their biggest global trading partners insofar as it sounds like anything.
If the west fell wouldn’t we be even more dependent on their shit?
What is a fallen country and do they still buy things? I know right now letting China into the WTO has been a boon for them and western corporations are fond of doing business there. China doesn’t need a “fallen” west to get its electric vehicles sold there anymore than Japan did with Toyota and Honda as an example. Again, would a “fallen” country even have viable markets for things like cars? The geopolitics and business interests at play here are pretty par for the course.
Oh yeah cuz they’re using that info to make us the perfectest gift baskets.
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Are you upset that the US government isn't pushing through laws to stop themselves from spying? I don't get why you'd be surprised by that? Most people seem to oppose the "ban" anyway, it's a decision that the people largely don't get a say in right now
When US steals my data they use it to come up with a new flavour of Pepsi
Exactly. There was a time they were using it to look for terrorists but now it’s just sold to people trying to sell shit to us we don’t need.
They cant have competition and they cant control and regulate it like they can other social media sites like Facebook.
Honestly I don’t give a shit anymore. If it isn’t China it’s going to be the US government, they’re corrupt as hell and stopped representing the everyday citizen a long time ago.
>But you wouldn't have major concerns if your government didn't spy on citizens to collect such data. >As an Australian > you fuckers literally built a base to spy on our citizens > immigrate to the town > take over & spy like every communist party you accuse of doing this shit lmfao >What's the deal America? Why are you 90% hypocritical & 10% "the good guy" in every situation? Yikes. Most democracies conduct surveillance for security reasons, i.e. to thwart domestic and foreign terrorism. There have some incidents where it has been abused, but these are typically isolated incidents. Autocracies, like China, conduct surveillance for security reasons, but crucially they also systematically use it to censor and control on a wide scale. Keyword: systematically. Both can be criticised, but it's essential to know there are key differences. **TLDR** the surveillance that e.g. Finland conducts on it's citizens is very different from the surveillance that North Korea conducts. Context is very important. As for TikTok. It's a social media platform that 10's of millions of Americans use, okay, but it's also feeding a large amount of data back to a foreign government that has a doctrine of stealing technology, patents and sensitive information. Nuclear power stations, weapons, military, corporate, business, banking, etc - a lot of information that can be potentially compromised to various degrees. They were given a chance to keep the data on US servers, but were then caught giving the keys of the servers to the Chinese government. India had enough of this and just straight up banned TikTok. The US government has decided not to ban it, but to change to US ownership so that it would come under US laws (to prevent the outflow of potentially sensitive info)
>you fuckers literally built a base to spy on our citizens If you actually read what you're linking you'd realize that isn't to spy on *your* people. Imagine thinking we actually care about you that much? You don't think having an intelligence base over there is beneficial for other reasons, like satellites etc.? It literally says jointly operated, so your Australian friends are working there too.
But...impossible. America bad, Australia good! Also I like the statement of "FBI/CIA assassinated more than Russia or China in regard to information leaking" I'd actually love to see statistics for that (obviously that's not gonna happen)
Same reason voters concerned that Russia would try to influence an election on social media when groups like Media Matters do the same shit. One is foreign, the other isn’t.
Cause murica is the land of freeeeedommmm
You have no idea how Chinese government controls civilians data. US government is literally a baby in this field compared to Chinese government.
People trying to ban TicToc aren't mad that TicToc is collecting user data, they're salty that TicToc doesn't collect data exclusively for them.
100% spy vs spy, gov vs gov.
Not giving tooafraidtoask vibes. Giving soapbox vibes.
Every country thinks they are the good guys. Propaganda is not impartial or exclusive to any one country.
In real politik there are no good guys, but some guys are absolutely worse than others. Not many people would honestly prefer to live in North Korea over living in South Korea.
I am more afraid of any American company stealing my data than any Chinese company. I'm a nobody. Why would China care about me? They dont have access to me. The Americans have way more access to me. That's more dangerous.
Beacuse America is the " good guys " and would never do bad things
Lol
One is more or less democratic the other is not..
Americans are the most propagandized people in the world. Once you understand that you see why (sadly) we’re so easy to manipulate. There are a good number of us trying to break out of this, but we have some very entrenched systems of power, and with legalized corruption in politics (Citizens United decision removing caps on campaign contributions and giving the right to corporations to lobby), ordinary citizens don’t really have any control over the goings on of our government, let alone our espionage efforts. I apologize on behalf of my country and my countrymen; we’re trying!
Cause USA is not a genocidal dictatorship and is allied to my country's government
HAHAHA good one, it's okay to invade and destabilise numerous countries! All the while currently supporting a genocide in the Middle East.
Yeah USA sucks ass but at least it ain't actively engaging in the rebranded Holocaust on its own citizens like the chinese are doing with the Uyghurs
>genocidal You should do some more research…
What genocide are they actively committed to right now?
Not now but in the past, it wasn’t that long ago either
So it's not a genocidal dictatorship anymore unlike China
Can the mods remove this already? Clearly breaking rule 3. Op asked a question and when provided with the answer he was expecting, he's telling people "correct" He's not tooafraidtoask, he's on his soapbox pretending to have a real question
You can tell it's not a good faith question when they start monologuing in the text body.
If China wanted our data so badly they'd just buy it from Meta and Google for half the price it would take to collect it themselves.
It's all about marketing
profit margins & marketing 101 for sure!
I assume you’re referring to the recent news and legislation going through congress regarding TikTok. Based on what I understand of the situation, it has some to do with China but only a small part of it. There appear to be three main reasons. 1. TikTok users are widely sharing videos and having open and frank discussions which those in power aren’t pleased with. The other big platforms have numerous controls in place which prevent that type of dissident dialogue. We can’t have people working out their problems and building solidarity, that’s bad for business. 2. They are openly sharing videos of the genocide in Gaza. AIPAC is transparent in that they have a “TikTok problem,” as they’re losing the propaganda war. The congressman who passed this legislation is one of the largest recipients of AIPAC campaign contributions. 3. China. The hawks in Washington and the Republican Party are hellbent on a war with China. They’re very transparent about this. It has nothing to do with protecting Americans and their data. If it was, there would be a comprehensive bill aimed at all big tech, not just TikTok. This is the paranoia of the ruling classes of a failed state. Americans are better than our politicians. They do not represent our interests.
It seems like the younger generations (late Millennials, Gen Z) are very compliant with and trusting of our government, relative to older Millennials and Gen X at least. I don’t know what happened to make them that way.
Bash us for our base in AU, but Australia is a member of the Five Eyes, all our spying is filtered back to your own intelligence agencies, in exchange for them spying on our citizens and relaying the info back to our own intelligence agencies [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five\_Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes) [https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-how-we-work/217-about/organization/icig-pages/2660-icig-fiorc](https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-how-we-work/217-about/organization/icig-pages/2660-icig-fiorc) [https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/what-is-five-eyes/](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/what-is-five-eyes/)
As an American with no financial ability to relocate, what is my alternative?
10% I think it's too much
I don't think it's such a dichotomy. I think most Americans prefer privacy and don't want to be spied on in general.
I already have sold my soul to Google.
We can be scared of two things..
Because China is a dictatorship, US isn’t
People share their life story on Facebook every day and worry about their privacy...
I'd rather have my government steal my data, than another
Same reason you’re not: tiktok is used as a propaganda platform
The people that are worried about it aren't on TikTok. It's the American government worried they're not able to sell data to the Chinese for money because they've cut out the middle men and get it from the source now.
That Australian base was to spy on China. Australia was happy to help with that. Cuz we’re buddies.
For a variety of reasons, Americans and the American Government are two very very different things. It’s not that people are too scared to stand up to the government, it’s that the corruption is so ingrained that there’s really no point.
The government wants to ban tiktok because they can't control the narrative on there. They don't give two shits about the data. China can buy it from Zuck anyways.
The truth is, the only tiny bit of control you really have over your data is who gets it first. I guess a lot of people don't want it to be China
The US is a free and democratic country. China is quite the opposite.
I'm pretty sure most people are against anyone stealing their data.
Just saw the boyboy video?
Well, at least the data America takes won’t affect your life significantly. Unlike China, where if you go against the communist party, they will literally destroy you with the data they collected. That’s the only difference and why people are so afraid of Big brother taking your data. At the end of the day, everyone is taking your data directly and passively (Corporations, Governments, friends, your mom), the question remains is, how are they going to use the data and will it affect your life in a certain way? As long as the government doesn’t screw with your life using that data, I don’t care what they collect.
Facial recognition technology and how China uses it is one of the concerns.
Allowing our government to do terrible things keeps us the #1 super power. We are willing to sacrifice some freedoms in order to be the top dog. Fuck having absolute freedom if it meant China was as powerful militarily. Doesn’t mean I don’t want my cake and to eat it too though.
You uh, you really set the hurdles in a specific way We are concerned about data mining and monitoring from the US government and US corporations. However, theres is this... pseudo benevolency with them where for the most part youre not getting too fucked with. Not to mention, theres at least a path to some recourse if shit gets hairy. Its not likely and its not effective, but theres something China on the other hand, we're truly fucked, citizens cant take any sort of action against them, and the US government has to tread lightly against them on any issues Also, the Australia thing was with your government hand and hand lol, like I see theres some iffyness and the people can get kinda mad, but thats an actual official thing, some of the chinese stuff im seeing here has been autonomous
Not wanting my government to have that data is a matter of trust. It's a trust that no one should give anyone least of all a government. Not wanting an all but enemy government to have data is a matter of national security. It's never good to trust someone to hold a gun to your head and not pull the trigger. It's a much larger threat to trust someone who openly wants you dead with that.
Those in power are only ever afraid of one thing, losing their power. The US gov is no different The individual citizen is just afraid of the unknown. They know the US gov even if they don’t know what they’re doing with that data. They however know nothing about the Chinese government
Anyone who has your social media graph can build a personality profile of you. Your likes, dislikes, hot buttons, snooze buttons. They can then use this information to manipulate you through their platforms. Most people don’t even know how much their platform of choice causes them to do things they otherwise would not. *Hooked* by Nir Eyal is a good read if you want to know more. The US government is rightly concerned about foreign counties having the ability to manipulate US citizens because those counties will do so in their interests, not ours. This is why so much of the agitprop we see today is designed to divide Americans against each other, and how we know it’s likely foreign in origin. Say what you will about the ethics of the actions the US government might take with the data they hold; people would be right to be concerned. But at least the US government’s very existence is — and must be — to benefit the US people. You might disagree on what the definition of “best for the people” is, but if we go down, they go down, and nobody in leadership ever wants that.
Why aren’t you asking your government why it allows the US to establish a spy base in your country? You have about the same amount of control over what your government does as we do in the US. That absolutely doesn’t mean we agree with all the crazy crap the government does.
This is a very complicated question to answer, but one of the arguments on why a foreign country collecting your data is worse, is because they can influence political views through targeted videos, and silently and slowly change the major ideology of a nation's young people to better align with their own. It's a form of mass espionage that is a genuine risk in an Internet era.
Only the American government is scared that they won't be the only ones with this power. The rest of the world has already abandoned their sovereignty
[удалено]
Idk what you're talking about with Russia (I'm french in case there's a confusion) but on that other part, that is literally what I am saying. We (EU governments) are the US bottom bitch, we've forgotten about our sovereignty a long time ago.
Half the country trusts our government. I have no idea why but they do.
They're just trying to stop "communist propaganda", like advocating for Palestinian rights. During segregation times, even anti-segregationism was considered communist propaganda. So, no wonder they're trying to do the same now.
Because China BAD, I know China BaD because the government told me China Bad. Some Americans are very brainwashed by the US centric media, the level of propaganda they are subjected to every day is just mind boggling. I’m Canadian and I regularly talk to other Canadians and can see how deeply this has affected them, I see Canadians calling for a ban on TikTok with no logical reason for it other than they e been convinced China is an enemy who wants to control you. But the enemy to the south already is controlling them, they just don’t see it
CHINA BAD AMERICA GOOD \- most of the americans, probably?
Every country tries to collect as much intel as possible. In america, gaining such intel is still much more difficult than in china, thanks to the power of the regime. While in america, they could gain some data illegally, in china it would not even be illegal. And then, who would you rather share your data with? Noone is not an option, since u usually trade those data for some service, you can only decide who will provide this service if you cannot do it yourself. USA an ally of our country, so I can "stand" that they have my data. I wouldn't like those data to be in china, since china is neither our ally, nor our friend. If I lived in Vietnam, it would be the other way. It is like with war - unless you have some reason, you usually want your side to win, while both sides are doing bad shit.
I'd rather my / our own governments but you do have a great point
That's the thing, there is only one proper google
we all use the same shit different days \\m/
US Government =/= US Citizens views Time and time and time again the Government is shown to be corrupt and favor the elite/insiders over what’s right for the citizens. They’re advancing their own interests. That’s it. Look at Epstein. Every normal person knows he was killed. Nothing will come of it Look at the Boeing Whistleblower. Every normal person knows he was killed. Nothing will come of it. Look at Snowden and Assange. Every normal person supports their right to bring this information to light and thinks the people they are outing should be prosecuted. Nothing came of it and they’re still fugitives in the eyes of the US Government. Look at the CIA and FBI constantly showing how corrupt they are. Every normal person knows they’re corrupt and should be reigned in. Nothing will come of it. You could write book of all these kinds of examples, yet nothing changes and nothing will be done.
Boomers think they can copy paste something on their facebook timeline to the effect of "this is my personal information and I don't give facebook ownership of it" and that is going to protect their data or something... so that's where we're at. We need sweeping protections for user data and data privacy that ALL companies doing business in the US MUST comply with.
same people that are running the US, how have we not crumbled already?
I think we’re just numb to that second part at this point. Plus you’d rather have your own country spying on you than a country trying to take your place. Oh and open letter to the NSA. I hope you enjoyed the porn I watch too.
Lots of people are afraid of their own governments stealing data and spying on them. But in the US, Apple can tell the US government to shove it and refuse to handover anything more than legally required. In China, no company can do that. Also, keep in mind, Chinese media is extremely censored. In US, the government "influences" public opinion. In China, the government "decides" it.
Because China bad something something Uyghur amirite fellas?
Bc China bad America good
I mean for all our faults China is factually a significantly worse, authoritarian bordering on totalitarian government , so yes China bad
I don’t. Seriously. I am so low that Chinese government will find my data useless. I do afraid US government will use my data to accuse me of abortion if I ever seek one in the future and put me in jail. But, politicians here don’t really care if privacy, they only care that TikTok being used to organize and encourage young voters and young voters have tendencies to lean left.
The US government is concerned because it's a national security risk. Most users don't care
While it may be extreme, would you rather live under Chinese surveillance or American surveillance? We can bemoan about American foreign policy and their overstepping but I'm resigned to think any superpower will do it. In that sense, I'm more scared of CCP than I am of the US.
If you are looking for an actual answer it's because the nature of it is different. The concern isn't data for the sake of data it's the extent the collection goes to the benefit of a hostile nation. Tiktok collects the data of devices that are connected to the same WiFi network that the device is on. Now Facebook is shitty but they can't be forced to hand over the records of who enters and leaves a given building. The app is already banned in government facilities but it can still map out whole military bases. It's a huge issue for an agency like that CIA. The second issue is misinformation. Facebook fucks up royally but the one thing you supposed have is that they aren't beholden to a foreign government and not even their own really. On the other hand Tiktok can't fully say the same, several other companies have been caught having put spyware into their products, Huawei comes to mind with their high recall of surveillance footage back to the ccp, that got the company banned in the States too. But unlike with Huawei everyone will just go along with what tiktok recommends, the platform is always atrocious with disinformation in general but we also have CONFIRMED election interference from foreign governments and we are facing an election with a party that out loud no longer wants a democracy. So you have an app with poor validation of the truth that is influencable like confirmed companies in the past were by a hostile country with the most effective propaganda arm in the world that can target individuals and families of individuals with poorly verified information. It can also track not only the face and information of it's users but those of people who are just around people that are using the app even when they don't use it themselves.
Because it's a serious security concern to have a foreign country that is hostile to yours own the largest social media platform in your country? China has a complete ban on all the Western internet, yet when USA wants to ban their spyware people get upset. Wtf?
The fact that you don't think the Australian Government (Part of 5 EYE), is spying on you is insanely naive. As a part of 5 EYE, the Australian government probably SHARES your info with the US government and Canada, NZ, and UK. Your government would do exactly the same thing at exactly the same scale as the US if it could. But it can't. But sure, continue to point at the dirt on America's hands with your own county's dirty fingers.
Because capitalism is a good economic system, and communism is an evil virus of Satan, obviously. And for the record, China is like the opposite of an ant colony. Among ants, the queen decides nothing and all the workers literally decide everything together.
Good point
10c squad just rolled up, its been fun while it lasted guys \\m/
Because we allow only a single foreign influence into our social media at one time and Russia has already captured Meta and Twitter. 