Comment on I'm OOTL: Why is TikTok being banned?
someguy3@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Two reasons, both related to being owned by a Chinese company.
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It’s mining data for the Chinese company.
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The Chinese company can do their algorithm to change what’s presented. So they can play up criticism of the US and downplay criticism of China.
The degree of separation between the communist government and private companies is uncertain, so yeah.
Tedesche@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Finally, someone who seems to be providing an answer based on objective fact rather than their own political perspective.
I’m getting the sense that the issue is simply that ByteDance is a Chinese company and their data farming is suspected of being accessible to the CCP, which may effectively be a means of spying on American citizens and as misinformation tactics. Not really any different the other way around, of course, but at least that makes sense as a rationale for banning it in the U.S.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
There are problems with the law as well. The main one is that Tik Tok buys a whole lot of data about Americans and their browser history etc from data brokers. So they don’t necessarily need the app to gather information. Comparisons of the Tik Tok app vs it’s counterpart in China exist and they paint a pretty significant picture of the differences and similarities that explain how it could be used to push a narrative or propaganda. Barring that though two things can be true. It can be true that Tik Tok is a danger to national security, and also be lobbied against by American Tech companies.
What we’re seeing is that this law was the result of several things and doesn’t just have one singular aim. Anyone who says it’s just about one singular thing just doesn’t want to admit the validity of the other arguments because it ruins how they feel about the federal government, Tik Tok, China, Trump, Biden etc.