Ideally, neither would have much data on me.

But in terms of potential harm, unquestionably China, unless I'm actively breaking US law.

My hostilities with the United States government are an edge case, a risk to be managed. The government, for 9 in 10 people, is a good actor.

China is a foreign actor. Unlike the US government it has zero checks and balances which I control, and should it use this data to compromise our government or fool the people I live with I expect the consequences to be far more damaging.

They were caught not too long ago actually spreading environmental causes in Texas against rare earth mining. They were trying to leverage our political process to make us dependent on them. Tools like TikTok make them far more effective at these sorts of operations, and it would be incredibly foolish to trust them.

If Cambridge Analytica has taught us anything, we should be thinking from the perspective of what's in the best interest of society rather than best interest of an individual.

I don't think CCCP data collection from TikTok would be very useful at targeting specific individuals. But the data set as a whole could be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb if exploited in pursuit of some nefarious goal (e.g. an outside country influencing the results of another country's political election)

That's like asking if you should be more worried about the common cold or Hepatitis B?

Just because one is more likely doesn't mean the damage from the other won't be so catastrophic that it's the greater risk.

This is false choice. Why did you present it?

Till this day, there has been no hard evidence of tiktok collecting data on behalf of Chinese government. Yet, it's routinely connected to CCP without a trace of backing.

So CCP is so bad that mere association is enough to deter any meaningful defense?

I'd imagine most people happy about this would also be happy about the same thing happening to the US tech companies too. I don't see what your point is?

Nit, the CCCP, or Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, is the Soviet Union. You probably meant the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party.

It's not an either/or choice. I don't want USA having that data either but that's not what this conversation is about. The CCP actively is genociding the Uyghurs and disappearing political dissenters. We are not the same. You do not want the CCP to get blackmail information on you especially if you work at a company they could potentially steal IP from.