this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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An obligation? Is there proof of that? That's a pretty incendiary accusation.
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/afcl/fact-check-tiktok-03242023144611.html
Technically according to this article tiktok won't share data with the PRC - but their parent company bytedance is obligated to share data with the PRC when requested. Bytedance has authority to require tiktok to share data. Therefore through this channel tiktok is obligated to share data with the PRC when requested.
Bytedance owning a stake in TikTok does not mean they can require TikTok to share data. Especially if we made a common sense law to protect data saying it's not allowed to leave the country.
Oh wait, that's already a thing. And we just let Meta and the other data vendors keep doing it.
They're owned by the CCP (and before you say they're not, the ByteDance C-suite is basically all current Chinese citizens and the headquarters is in Beijing).
Businesses and people do not have rights in the way most westerners are used to. Assume anything out of China or generally owned by Chinese companies is a direct arm of the CCP ... because even if it isn't today, the CCP can unilaterally throw down an order from the top and take control of the company/have them do whatever they want or the leaders replaced.
So are American companies that are basically all Americans in the C-Suite owned by the US Government?
Even if what you were saying was true, the common sense approach is to ban the trading of data internationally. Then TikTok can tell Beijing to pound sand if they tried anything. Instead we have this fear mongering racist bullshit being touted.
Ultimately, yes. The US government can tell Google to report all searches of "I'm a goofy goober!" to them to collect a list of SpongeBob fans.
The same is true of a company like Proton and Swiss law.
The difference is that in the US/Switzerland/Western Democracy there are rights, laws, and courts that limit and check government power and action + open ended elections. Biden cannot just go to Elon Musk and tell him "this is my company now, you WILL report all the goofy goobers." There are a lot of roadblocks to that kind of behavior.
The CCP is a monoculture based around the "National People's Congress". The NPC is effectively the CCP because the CCP picks who is eligible to be part of the NPC https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China
The CCP is currently effectively controlled by Xi who has claimed increasing amounts of control over the party: https://journalofdemocracy.org/articles/china-in-xis-new-era-the-return-to-personalistic-rule/
For all intents and purposes, what Xi wants is what happens. There is no court to check him, there is no opposition party to hold him back, and anyone that tries to stand in his way will more than likely be "punished."
This is not racist bull shit. It has nothing to do with Chinese people and everything to do with the CCP.
The trading of data also has very little to do with anything. It's about cutting off a hostile, authoritarian, foreign power from having a direct line to millions of US citizens to push whatever message they want with minimal oversight. The data is surely just icing on the cake for the CCP because they might be able to find some blackmail worthy piece of information in their hoard of metrics and videos for a current or future public figure.
I don't think you understand either ... "Banning" something only works if they care about the law and the CCP does not care at all about US laws. If they want to break them, they will, and they will either get the people that did the job for them back to China or use people that don't know anything/any better as scapegoats. It's the exact same stuff any government would do, international law is imaginary because ultimately nations do not answer to nations except by diplomacy and war.
Lmao. Okay we're done here. You have an outsized idea of nationality, government power, and what's in TikTok data.