Scott Galloway’s take on this is concise and unfortunately I think it’s right. In short, TikTok is a powerful tool of surveillance and influence in the US, and because you can’t decouple the motives of TikTok from the motives of the CCP, it should be banned full stop.
If the CCP wants to play that game, at least demand full access to our apps in their country. Otherwise, I don't see why we would let them have full access to ours.
What’s fascinating is that it took this long for this very common sense opinion to be shared outside of right-wing circles because Trump said it first.
Looks like it was a tough pill for everyone to swallow and realize that even someone like Trump was right on this, despite the whole media screaming 'whataboutism', "Don't ban TikTok", etc.
The only time they realize is when it is too late.
You aren’t wrong, but the two situations aren’t equivalent. The stakes are high when we are talking about a foreign government that isn’t shy about its desire to undermine the United States and its willingness to use everything at its disposal to do so. The FBI, in theory at least, has different motivations, is subject to US law, and can be held accountable.
They are not subject to US law or accountability. Apple is compelled to turn over user data from iCloud to the USG over thirty thousand times per year without a warrant or probable cause via FAA702 which allows the federal government direct access to Apple (and Google et al) servers to download user data.
It hasn’t been subject to US law or accountability for a long time.
