I'm tired of "national security" being thrown around willy nilly. If the US government has proof that this is a security risk, they need to be public and transparent with their proof. Anything short of that and I'm not on board with "a ban".
That said, I agree that young kids and those who compulsively use social networks are fickle and are likely to move onto another network when the current one ceases to keep their attention.
> If the US government has proof that this is a security risk, they need to be public and transparent with their proof. Anything short of that and I'm not on board with "a ban".
You don't need proof when the CCP is itself giving you so much evidence. Infact I should be asking Americans as to what is wrong with you guys that you are supporting a totalitarian government? The CCP passed a new cyber security law in January of this year (called the MLPS 2.0) where it has given itself full power to have unrestricted access to any data transmitted or stored within CCP.
“There will be no secrets,” writes Steve Dickinson on the China Law Blog. “No VPNs. No private or encrypted messages. No anonymous online accounts. No confidential data. Any and all data will be available and open to the Chinese government….there will be no place for foreign-owned companies to hide.” [1]
What about foreign investors? It gets even worse!
"It’s exactly as bad as it sounds, and it gets worse. The MLPS 2.0 is supported by two additional pieces of legislation, both of which strip away any protections, safeguards, and loopholes that might once have been used to maintain the sanctity of corporate data. Both went into effect at the beginning of this month.
The first is a new Foreign Investment Law which, as Dickinson notes, treats foreign investors exactly the same as Chinese investors. Although this has been billed as a means of simplifying the investment process, in practice it strips foreign investors of many of the rights they previously enjoyed. Areas of the market previously closed to foreign companies will remain closed.
The second, as reported by Engadget, establishes a new set of guidelines surrounding encryption. Again, on the surface, these seem like they were proposed with the common good in mind. It’s only on closer examination that cracks start to appear." [1]
And you are telling me here that this isn't a threat to the National Security? TikTok is obligated to share your data without even being asked for because of this Chinese law. And before you say that TikTok operates in US and not in China, its parent company ByteDance is a Chinese company. You cannot form a Chinese company without adhering to these laws! Do you really want the US Government to come out and confirm this when China has itself passed such a law?
You completely missed the point of what I was saying.
The US government should not ban me from choosing to use a crappy entertainment app. Yes, I realize that an app which is owned by a Chinese company who stores its servers and data in China is governed by Chinese laws.
> what is wrong with you guys that you are supporting a totalitarian government?
I'm not. I'm just saying that anything short of a blanket ban on an entertainment product is not tantamount to "supporting a totalitarian government". You are missing all of the shades of gray. You can't post to HackerNews without using {a phone, a computer, and internet connection, etc} which provided revenue to a company in China, which according to your logic "supports the totalitarian government".
Also there is a philosophy called accelerationism[1] which is the inverse of what you propose, but which may get to the end point (freedom from the CCP) faster than your proposed solution.
I'm tired of "national security" being thrown around willy nilly. If the US government has proof that this is a security risk, they need to be public and transparent with their proof. Anything short of that and I'm not on board with "a ban".
That said, I agree that young kids and those who compulsively use social networks are fickle and are likely to move onto another network when the current one ceases to keep their attention.