Law passed by Congress forces TikTok to be sold to a U.S. company or banned by Sunday
I don’t believe that it is illegal to use Ticktok under the new law. It is just illegal for companies to give access to Ticktok.
VPNs are going to become quite popular. I can’t wait for this to blow up in all the wrong ways.
And nothing of value will have been lost. It’s pretty clear that people don’t care about surveillance or influence, or whatever. They just want to be popular and/or be distracted. Once Red Book bans them, sequesters them, or limits their access somehow, they’ll have to migrate again, and I bet the majority won’t pick a fediverse alternative.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re right.
Giving so much information and influencial power to a dictatorship is crazy. China is not a friendly country, they are on the brink of a war with Taiwan, they commit genocides, and have the power to rewrite history.
Sure, Musk and Zuckerberg also influence elections, but at least they’re under American law. TikTok is not just “some” Chinese company. It is controlled by China.
The People’s Republic of China has never committed a genocide. Taiwan is part of China. China has one of the most peaceful foreign policies of any major power, and has only ever fought wars to defend it’s own borders or support it’s allies. It is more Democratic than any nation in the West, especially the United States.
Just such a bad precedent though.
Bad precedent of banning widely popular apps that do data mining and influence and that are controlled by non friendly dictatorships? If VK was popular in the US, should it get banned, or should we just let it do its things?
Who decides what is bad? How is censorship going to get enforced?
This feels like a step closer to state run firewall.
Ban the data-mining
The problem is saying that it’s bad if it’sa Chinese company but ok if it’s a US company. This is a racist and anti globalist policy.
Its not ok when it’s an American company, and America has a long way to go on this.
However, enforcement is impossible when China is the one controlling it. There is no limit to what they are allowed to do with the data.
China is banning any Chinese personal data from leaving the country because they are afraid we would handle the data the same way they do foreign data.
Race has nothing to do with it. Dictatorship does. It’s bad if any dictatorship or unfriendly country does it.
China also has influence on other platforms. I don’t think that’s that big on an issue.
The problem is privacy not China
I don’t think the government should get to control what apps, websites, etc… we can and can’t use to communicate with our fellow humans.
Strengthen data privacy laws. Algorithm transparency laws. Look at gdpr and TikTok being sued for sending their data back to China. Etc…