TikTok has been at the center of controversy for the United States government in the last few years. Particularly, members of the Senate believe China-based parent company ByteDance could spy on its users and share information with the Chinese Government.
With fears that TikTok could shut down if new legislation passes Congress, with lawmakers pushing for the website’s sale, ex-Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is reportedly looking to purchase the platform.
Whereas it’s a well-known fact that Facebook, Twitter, and everything Google spy on their users and share information with the US government.
That’s fine, though, because the US government has NEVER been known to violate the rights of its own people and people from pretty much every other country in the world as well, nuh-uh! 🙄
I don’t understand why this comment is inevitably under every Tiktok thread. Everyone knows Big Tech spies for the govt especially the lawmakers, precisely why they don’t want a hostile foreign govt doing it.
China knows this too - that’s why FB, Google etc are banned there. So what’s your point?
My point is that it’s empty posturing based in xenophobia. Most of Congress don’t give a shit about the data privacy and safety of Tiktok users. They just want to be able to tell voters that they bravely took on the Big Bad Chinese Government Company
Other than the cheap political points, they hope that it’ll distract those same voters from the fact that they’re doing nothing about the much bigger problem of many times bigger American companies who cooperate with the same government and other geopolitical adversaries while doing the same as Tiktok on a much larger scale.
It’s not a “could spy”, it’s a definitely spies. Yes, it sucks that we don’t have broader social media reforms and controls in place, but allowing a foreign hostile government this much direct access to US citizens is a bridge too far.
I partially agree: you’re right that the Chinese government spying on American users is unacceptable, but you’re wrong about it being any worse than the US government doing it.
Only case would be if you work in government, but even then, it’d only be a problem if you’re using an unsecured device that also has Tiktok on it to do secret government stuff on, which would probably get you super-fired and possibly prosecuted in itself…
I like how it says “could,” when it’s been a known fact for awhile now, that they do this.
Probably a case of alleged-itis 🤷