> TikTok could become really important, really fast. We shouldn’t let things get to that point.

Twitter was and is still very, very popularly used to get immediate news in the event of domestic and international emergencies and it still is at this point considering it is used as a platform which agencies can use to convey information quickly and have it retweeted.

Anyone who has been on Twitter recognizes this. You can still find first-person POV from users in some really interesting situations that would otherwise not be shown on mass-media networks due to regulatory controls on what can and can't be shown.

Does that validate the use-case in Twitter being banned? Let's say the new owner doesn't want to show reporting from what is happening in Eastern Europe - does that further solidify an argument that it should be banned because it has been 'weaponized'?

The author at no point references Twitter in their article and just continues on a narrow lens on the subject matter.

What is the value in banning an app in a shroud of hypotheticals?

I read that. tl;dr: CCP bad.

It didn't make a lot of sense. It was a weak argument. Until I got to this part:

In other words, even if the TikTok issue seems largely symbolic right now, the app’s dominance of American media gives China’s government a considerable amount of option value in the event of a crisis. TikTok could become really important, really fast.

In other words, it could be bad at some future time. But the US is overwhelmingly supportive of Ukraine (and there is a lot of pro-Ukraine content on TikTok) and Taiwan. Americans broadly understand these are democracies under threat and deserve support. TikTok is not in a position to change those perceptions.

Thanks for sharing. I read through the sources in the article.

> Toward the end of the 45–minute experiment, analysts’ feeds were almost exclusively populated with both accurate and false content related to the war in Ukraine

A DoD funded company says that new accounts on TikTok were exposed to correct and incorrect information the Ukraine war. This is going to be true on any social media app in the entire world.

> For years, lawmakers and commentators have feared that the Chinese government could use TikTok — which is owned by a Chinese parent company, ByteDance — to secretly distribute content sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party in order to shift public opinion in the United States.

Former employees of a separate app that shut down 3 years ago claim they were told to pin videos of pandas and tourism in China to the front page.

> TikTok can collect, which includes faceprints, voiceprints, browsing history, text messages, and pretty much anything you do on your phone

Again, not unique.

Do I like TikTok? No. But I don't think hypotheticals are enough reason to ban it. I think this is a very similar scenario to the 2016 Russian misinformation hysteria that was ultimately mostly unfounded.

Hmm idk about this. You should always be suspicious when something has overwhelming bipartisan support and the US Security State also wants to ban it. See this video: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1637483021120024579

Because they can’t control it like they can control Google, Microsoft etc. inserting whatever back doors they want. Video outlines it well.

I believe the issue is that were we to ban based solely on behavior and not country of origin, we'd have to ban every single social network in existence right now.

And probably many, if not most traditional media outlets too.

Maybe a few hundred other ad and personal information sales supported applications.

There are very few good actors on the internet today, when you evaluate them based on the behaviors you mention.

Oh no, the evil CPC will know what shitty dances American teenagers are doing.

They aren't banned "at will" they were banned for violating Chinese law by refusing to remove illegal content. You can disagree with those laws, but calling it "at will" is disingenuous.

Exactly. This sentiment is the general problem with China. They expect the world to bend over backwards to accommodate them and their economic goals while allowing none of the same reciprocal treatment with other countries. They want all of the upsides of being a larger player on the global stage while accepting none of the downsides. You can't have it both ways.

That's true across a broad set of economically more significant domains than social media. But there is no moral panic over (shoddy) Chinese trains on the Orange Line.

That's a different issue from the information security aspect.

Chinese spying on US isn't mitigated by US getting a chance to spy on Chinese.

The concern is that the market deals in materials too dangerous to be allowed to be run by foreign adversaries.

Yes, that's a good argument for Americans. For non-Chinese, non-Americans, TikTok is not different from any other social media app.

Category error.

China has state capitalism, and "communist" is name only, and not relevant to the topic.