“If lawmakers want to rein in the harms of social-media platforms, targeting just one under the guise of national security ignores an entire industry predicated on surveillance capitalism. Like all popular platforms — including those that Meta and Google own — TikTok collects far too much user data. But banning a single platform will not address the privacy problem that’s rotting the core of the entire tech industry.
If domestic social media is collecting dangerous amounts of personal info about Americans, then foreign social media under who are subject to the laws of adversarial nation-states should be seriously concerning.
The matter of domestic social media will have to be addressed by a completely different law because it cannot be addressed by a law similar to this new one. People who bring up domestic social media in discussions of this law are completely missing the point.
Chew responded to the latest moves in a video posted by the official TikTok account. "Make no mistake, this is a ban," Chew said in the video. "A ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice."
With the sort of detailed personal profile a social media app has on you, they could target your specific beliefs, religious convictions, sexual preferences, political affiliation, fears, interests, desires, etc. to manipulate your opinion in their interests. Doing this on a population-wide scale is what social media platforms are all about (i.e. targeted advertising). It's wise to be concerned about an adversary having such a tool at its disposal. And this is true for all countries, not just the US.
No, but it does prohibit companies in those four sanctioned countries from operating social media apps in the US. The fact that it's not a perfect protection is no good reason not to do it. The fact that it was written with an eye towards the first amendment is not a valid criticism.
The law affects social media apps based in North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia. These four countries are already restricted from participating in sensitive areas of the US economy, with forced sale being an option. The only really novel part of this law is applying such restrictions to software.
And the fact that a foreign adversary obtained this information was very bad, agreed? Clearly, it makes sense to take steps to keep that kind of information out of adversarial hands.
The United Kingdom is not an adversary of the United States. In fact it's one of our closest allies. But, if anything, that suggests this law isn't enough, not that it's too much.
If social media apps exist to slurp up as much user info as possible, and they do, then it makes sense to be concerned about the government that they're subject to.
If domestic social media is collecting dangerous amounts of personal info about Americans, then foreign social media under who are subject to the laws of adversarial nation-states should be seriously concerning.
The matter of domestic social media will have to be addressed by a completely different law because it cannot be addressed by a law similar to this new one. People who bring up domestic social media in discussions of this law are completely missing the point.