This doesn't make sense for US citizens. In the worst case scenario, the government could seize a company's assets, including the data centers, which contains data on all its users.
In the case of FB, the US government would get that data.
In the case of TikTok, it's the Chinese government who would get the data on you, the US citizen.
Objectively speaking, it would be strictly worse if lots of data on US citizens would end up in the hands of the Chinese government, because it's a foreign government and, as we know, information is power. Data on one person is not that useful, data on millions of US citizens, even when noisy, can be extremely powerful.
We also know at this point that a feature like News Feed can be trivially used to influence what information people see and how that information is presented, which then influences the people's opinion of matters in the world, even if the information is delivered via a fun, engaging or funny medium, it's still being absorbed by the brain and the end result is the same: successful control of the information dispersed to the masses.
It's one thing for the US government to influence its citizens opinion (all governments do this for various reasons, for example to cultivate feelings of patriotism and national pride), and it's a completely different ball game if the Chinese government can influence what US citizens think of certain matters. For example, they can try to sway the public opinion towards a political candidate that is more favorable for the foreign government, thereby meddling in a foreign election, only this time it's done with a ton of plausible deniability and the foreign citizens themselves are helping out.
This doesn't mean that Facebook is good, just that it is the lesser of two evils, and, in my opinion, it's a strategic mistake on the US's part to allow TikTok to be used en masse by US citizens. I would have banned it a long time ago.
You could also replace US and China with any other two states that can control what information billions of people see on a daily basis and I would argue the same point.
If we're talking about people who don't have accounts or don't view Facebook (which presumably people with deactivated accounts don't), then they're not looking at the News Feed (or whatever the TikTok equivalent is) and can't be influenced that way.
And practically speaking, there's very little China can do to an "average" American citizen based on browsing habits and stuff like that. Now if a person ever goes to China, then I agree they'd have a problem, but most Americans don't.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of ways for the US government to (legally) use the data Facebook has collected against its citizens.
Imagine China going internet-nuclear and releasing the browsing history of most Americans for the last N years as a giant torrent or searchable webpage, tied to names, accounts, spouses and addresses.
And? Most of that data is already floating around thanks to Facebook and Twitter "like" buttons; Google analytics; CDN Javascript hosting, ISP logs, etc.
And you can't even claim it's inaccessible and hidden away in Google and Facebook data centers, because there's no transparency into who has access to it, so we really don't know.
On the other hand, I trust the US government about as much as I trust the Chinese government, or any other government for that matter. None of them, when push comes to shove, give a crap about a plebe like myself. They’ll all use whatever they have on me to get what they want if I could be of any use in the future.
Not really an option; when the government wants something they’re basically your enemy. Who cares if China knows everything about me, they can’t get to me, whereas the USA government just has to issue some legal threat and I can’t stop it. China isn’t my enemy and can’t do shit to me. The USA gov might be someday.
They're not your enemy _now_ and yes they can affect your life. You seem to be thinking about it as if someone in the CCP will wake up one day and decide to do something about "ok_dad". You're not alone in the country, right? There are other people that influence your life. While you may not be directly targeted, you can be indirectly affected by their ability to influence _other people around you_.
And when it comes to data, individual data is not that useful, it's aggregate data that's useful, which is why we _collectively_ have to prevent this from happening. For example, you don't have to give me your phone number, it's sufficient that your friend who called you gives me access to his contact list.
> The USA gov might be someday.
Two things can be bad at the same time. You could be enabling a foreign country to affect your life, and you could be targeted by the US government.
You're right, but this is why the US is more likely to bonk them over the head, admittedly this is less of a threat now w/ Biden in Office, but still a threat.
TikTok's biggest short term threat is probably the CCP, which has been increasingly taking a hardline approach w/ their own tech companies (think Ant Financial, JD etc).
The CCP is taking a hardline with companies domestically. There's a huge push to stop corrupting the youth, treat data responsibly, etc.
The CCP gives 0 shits what those companies do to the rest of the world, and are probably thrilled if TikTok causes political and social chaos in the US.
>> The CCP is taking a hardline with companies domestically. There's a huge push to stop corrupting the youth, treat data responsibly, etc.
Exactly, w/ 72% of their users being domestic[1], TikTok's biggest short term threat is probably the CCP.
>> The CCP gives 0 shits what those companies do to the rest of the world, and are probably thrilled if TikTok causes political and social chaos in the US.
