President Joe Biden has endorsed legislation that could lead to the popular video-sharing app TikTok being banned in the United States, a move that comes amid growing concern in Washington about keeping Americans' private data out of China’s hands.
Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok owner ByteDance could share user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with China’s authoritarian government. TikTok said it has never done that and wouldn’t do so if asked. The U.S. government also hasn’t provided evidence of that happening.
The US government has since before 9/11 but at an astronomically higher degree since then done precisely that.
The corporations all work, willingly, with the US government in exchange for an understanding that they'll get juicy contracts down the line.
On top of that corruption, ATT, who owns most of the "backbone" of the internet is the biggest participant in this corruption. That's mean fuck Facebook or Google, your ISP or the points down the line owned by ATT (or Verizon, another collaborator- basically all the telecomms are) is willingly, happily, warrant-lessly handing over any and all data requested at a whim with no legal checks on it. It's not considered a constitutional violation because, despite clearly being exactly that, courts have decided if you "willingly" use the internet and consented a private corporation is allowed to collect that data, which they own, and can choose to willingly hand it over if they wish.
The TikTok shit is 100% performative and probably being pursued because the government can't control it (just spy on it).
All of that said, I don't see this bill actually happening mostly because it's a signaling bill "we hate the Chicomms!" bullshit. Also, if you take treats away, you're asking for it. I don't use TikTok, but millions of young people do, and I can't see actually fucking that over going anything close to "well" for congress/president.
I guess I should backtrack a little bit and say something like "the end result of all of this will be, at worst, the US government in some capacity gaining some sort of algorithmic control over TikTok within the US specifically and/or some sort of data sharing agreement."
If we're being 100%, they can't ban TikTok and they know it, we know it, everyone including the Chinese government knows it. So they'll work something out and they'll pretend they did something.
Online poker was "banned" almost 20 years ago. Unregulated Crypto trading, in many forms, had the same treatment a few years back and yet Americans also still participate in that. I'm not trying to be... whatever here. I don't care that much about TikTok, the only aspect of this I "care" about a lot actually is the clear targeting of it for a very specific reason right now... young people are anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. Congress, out of touch as always, but also just seeking a multi-point "win" (optically anyway, for grandparents voting), is doing something to appease the Israel-lobby, appease their own internal fascistic tendencies to crush correct information they can't control, to punish "the kids" they view as wrong (or know are right, more likely) and just generally to appease grandmas all over the US who can't shut up about how "illegals are invading" or alternatively how "Trump is literally Hitler and Putin and Mussolini" and as a result their grandkids haven't called in months or years. They think if the "damn ticktaks" is banned little Jimmy will take 5 minutes to call. He won't, though.
The US has the most well funded hackers in the world, and all they can do is “warn” that China “could” steal data instead of provide concrete evidence
Even the CIA has come out and said they couldn’t find any evidence, but that it’s “possible” https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/08/07/cia-finds-no-evidence-chinese-government-has-accessed-tiktok-data-report-says/
The US government has since before 9/11 but at an astronomically higher degree since then done precisely that.
The corporations all work, willingly, with the US government in exchange for an understanding that they'll get juicy contracts down the line.
On top of that corruption, ATT, who owns most of the "backbone" of the internet is the biggest participant in this corruption. That's mean fuck Facebook or Google, your ISP or the points down the line owned by ATT (or Verizon, another collaborator- basically all the telecomms are) is willingly, happily, warrant-lessly handing over any and all data requested at a whim with no legal checks on it. It's not considered a constitutional violation because, despite clearly being exactly that, courts have decided if you "willingly" use the internet and consented a private corporation is allowed to collect that data, which they own, and can choose to willingly hand it over if they wish.
The TikTok shit is 100% performative and probably being pursued because the government can't control it (just spy on it).
All of that said, I don't see this bill actually happening mostly because it's a signaling bill "we hate the Chicomms!" bullshit. Also, if you take treats away, you're asking for it. I don't use TikTok, but millions of young people do, and I can't see actually fucking that over going anything close to "well" for congress/president.
As opposed to the non-authoritarian government of uhhhh
That was my thought before it was approved 50-0 by a bipartisan committee. I hope you’re right though
I guess I should backtrack a little bit and say something like "the end result of all of this will be, at worst, the US government in some capacity gaining some sort of algorithmic control over TikTok within the US specifically and/or some sort of data sharing agreement."
If we're being 100%, they can't ban TikTok and they know it, we know it, everyone including the Chinese government knows it. So they'll work something out and they'll pretend they did something.
Online poker was "banned" almost 20 years ago. Unregulated Crypto trading, in many forms, had the same treatment a few years back and yet Americans also still participate in that. I'm not trying to be... whatever here. I don't care that much about TikTok, the only aspect of this I "care" about a lot actually is the clear targeting of it for a very specific reason right now... young people are anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. Congress, out of touch as always, but also just seeking a multi-point "win" (optically anyway, for grandparents voting), is doing something to appease the Israel-lobby, appease their own internal fascistic tendencies to crush correct information they can't control, to punish "the kids" they view as wrong (or know are right, more likely) and just generally to appease grandmas all over the US who can't shut up about how "illegals are invading" or alternatively how "Trump is literally Hitler and Putin and Mussolini" and as a result their grandkids haven't called in months or years. They think if the "damn ticktaks" is banned little Jimmy will take 5 minutes to call. He won't, though.
The US has the most well funded hackers in the world, and all they can do is “warn” that China “could” steal data instead of provide concrete evidence
Even the CIA has come out and said they couldn’t find any evidence, but that it’s “possible” https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/08/07/cia-finds-no-evidence-chinese-government-has-accessed-tiktok-data-report-says/