It’s all posturing

I’ll tell you a secret you might have missed.

It’s not about the privacy.

It’s about a foreign country of similar power levels having the ability to shape your people’s political opinions.

They’re shitting themselves because it’s one of the first times it’s happened to them instead of them doing it to someone else.

I feel like the American media is out of control and is no longer a tool of the people, but a fire hose of the wealthy, disseminating whatever will help them keep their power.
They have convinced the people that news makes you intelligent, when really the lack of new ideas and differing viewpoints creates a closed feedback loop so they just regurgitate whatever they hear with absolute confidence, but if you ask them a question it all falls apart.
Fox, CNN, New York Times, NPR, it's all owned or supported in such a way that they dare not bite the hand that feeds it.
So I, for one, am open to hearing what foreign countries have to say.

America is guilty of everything Americans accuse China about.

American politicians don't need social media to invade peoples privacy. The patriot act sealed the deal a while ago. If they want to spy, they're going to.

I should also add that the whole tik tok ban is just a way to toss in extra laws that give the America government more control. They say it's about tik tok, but it's a scapegoat to get people to vote for invasive laws.

Same here with india

Americans when Canadians say they'd prefer TikTok spying vs an American company:

but seriously. I want no one to have my data, but if someone HAD to have it, I would prefer TikTok over anything from Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, etc..

My country wont export me to China if I post something negative or pirate something. My country will export me to the US if they come banging on my door. I am quite literally safer letting China have a bit of my data.

Don't worry the illegally operating Chinese police station in your city will just come and get you. No need to be exported, you get to be questioned and held by a foreign officer without any direct oversight in your own country!
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/there-may-be-more-chinese-police-stations-canada-minister-says-2023-05-14/
- The point
  your head
This is the worst take I've ever heard. The concerns are "capitalist targeted advertising" vs "a foreign power abusing American user data to target and push agendas on it's people".
Is lemmygrad leaking??
- Are you seriously implying the 'murican government wouldn't get easy access to whatever data an US company has on you?
- I'm not a lemmygrad user. I'm simply stating facts?
  There's literally many recent news articles of Canadians getting in legal trouble from American companies because of the things they posted or things they downloaded.
  The Canadian government isn't handing me over to China or allowing China to come get me.
  My comment is not even pro China. I'm just saying that nothing I say or do will allow China to put me in jail. Can't say the same about America.
  You should learn to read. I would prefer no one get my data, but it's statistically safer for me for China to get it over an American company. However, no one should get it. Fuck shit American companies, fuck shit Chinese companies.

Can't we just say that both are bad?

politicians are actively talking about banning tiktok. let me know when they do the same for twitter, instagram, reddit, facebook, tinder, youtube, google, amazon, and every other US site that does the exact same snooping that tiktok does. THEN we can say “both are bad”.
- I think you've got it backwards. If we can't acknowledge that both are bad before talking about banning them, then what justification do we have for banning them?

The key difference is that American Government agencies don't have access to the information TikTok steals from its users.

Edit: This comment implied the US has easy access to the data from companies like Facebook.

This is naive. America has all the laws they need to get data from private companies, just the same as China
- Sure, but there's a difference between having the potential to do something, and actively doing it. I'm aware the FBI/CIA can get my data from Google if they want it, but something would have to trigger them into wanting to investigate me. With a Chinese company there is no "if", all of the data goes straight to the CCP. Tencent, the bloated multimedia company, even had a moment of ironic hypocrisy where they didn't want to give away all of their users' data.
- And thanks to Snowden revelations we know for a fact that US companies work directly with US government and share all their user data.

Both are bad.

But only one is a national security threat.
- Is it the one that radicalizes people into white supremacist terrorism?
- Depends on the perspective

i'd rather be spied on by an allied country, or my own, than a somewhat hostile country.

....why?
I'd rather be spied on by a far away country than by one with armed bastards on my street
I'd rather not be spied on.
If you're being honest to yourself, when your own country is spying on you it might have a bigger impact on you than a country you might visit for a week or never.
They ain't hostile to me. Ain't never materially harmed me. Now Amerika on the other hand... Buddy.
- You're delusional if you think China isn't hostile to the US and its citizens

Has everyone forgotten when Zuck was brought before congress and grilled about Facebook? True, the reps merely embarrassed themselves through their own ignorance, but being ineffectual is not the same as hypocracy.

Lol yeah politicians haven't exactly been abstaining from grandstanding about domestic social media giants.