The cynic in me wonders how much personal data is being harvested by these private companies with the PRC's blessing. The occasional high-profile smackdown could be a tactical way of hiding that agenda.
That isn't cynical, that is a reality. We have a lot of friends who are Chinese natives and have first person accounts of tracking and monitoring of various types.
Interesting, do you know if this extends to consumer technology companies like Lenovo and Motorola? I find the claim easy to believe about services like TikTok, but it seems like it would be more difficult to surveil hardware customers globally without being detected. On the other hand, if there were some backdoor in consumer hardware, I suppose we might not be able to detect it . . . .
There is always money in the banana stand (fining any company that collects data and does not move fast enough).