Thank you, well said kodablah. This conflict-seeking behavior, this sudden slamming the door: it's a threat to functioning world order & against civic cause.
China currently has that---it ignores IP laws, when it suits them, but enforces them when it suits them. It forces ownership requirement rules on foreign companies within China, but encourages Chinese-backed take over of foreign companies outside of China.
It bans foreign products within its country, to protect homegrown companies (or steals the IP, then bans the competition if it can't buy out the devalued company).
In the case of trade between two multi-trillion dollar economies (US & China), if one side never retaliates over bad faith, and always is more permissive than the other then that side is bound to lose out.
The way China is behaving, and has behaved for the past 30+ years, is unfair and detrimental to US companies and trading partners. It may sting in the short term to be denied Chinese financial support, and Chinese products but in the long term this is the only way to either force China apply parity and fairness in its own rulings, or stimulate a local economy that isn't wholly dependent and subordinate to Chinese interests.
You may be willing to give up liberty in exchange for some leveling of economic advantage, but you cannot also say that you are not, in fact, giving up that measure of liberty.
I don't actually use TikTok, btw.
Our supposed difference is that we have a system of laws and accountability and doing business with the US isn't at the whim of a manchild like China.
This is not a good thing.
Being morally right is of no use when it hurts your own citizens.
If the US had a problem with tiktok they could've implemented a privacy framework and put everyone on that standard.
China could be using the Tiktok data and doing similar things which Russia and others did with FB data.
What privacy framework? How would that prevent China from accessing Tiktok data?
Right. Instead of selectively banning apps like TikTok ban all chinese apps, that would be fair to china
Are you saying we should trust communists with our data? This should have been Apple’s move! But they failed us.
What's more disappointing is watching the thunderous applause from technologists here and elsewhere as software is outlawed which is not otherwise illegal and is not being litigated as illegal. We should not cheer on the restriction of any software on nationalistic terms. Content is one thing, physical equipment another, but algorithms should be borderless. Most in the community disagree with encryption export restrictions, why can't they similarly disagree with software import restrictions? 2A groups recognize slippery slope precedents, why can't technologists?
If the content/data is being harvested and/or managed illegally, then make that illegal and/or prosecute under that pretense (even if the evidence is subject to national security non-disclosure). Otherwise, it's obvious this is political posturing at the cost of digital freedom. It should be as widely condemned as government surveillance has been.