We all shit our pants because Russia used Meta, and American company, to influence the 2020 election. Imagine the same amount of data, a more accurate algorithm, and entirely within the control of foreign actors.
It doesn't matter if it is China or Colombia or Japan, a foreign company have that much influence over the opinions citizens of a country is dangerous.
This is actually the underpinnings of the free market and free speech. It's the ability for everyone to influence everyone else. What do you think speech is? It's the ability to say things that may influence others... and we let people think for themselves whether they should get influenced or not. Once we decide to think for others and choose what's best for other's, we'll have become the authoritarians.
If the leaders in the West weren't concerned about the "average Joe" and their (mis)understandings of politics and situations with complex nuances, then the West would likely be a true Democracy (like ancient Athens, where the People vote on issues such as War and Taxes) instead of a Republic or Democratic Republic (where the People elect a small group to vote on their behalf).
Regardless, I think our Western leaders SHOULD be concerned with the "average Joe" mentality. That includes, by a wide margin, propaganda efforts by other nations.
https://rankingdigitalrights.org/2021/07/14/testing-tiktok-d...
There are _far less_ antisocial practices featured on Chinese TikTok than on Western (specifically American) TikTok. However, the comparison to Instagram and Facebook doesn't differ all that much, so maybe they're simply giving us the content we want.
Any company injecting keyloggers or monitoring systems into web content should be subject to the same equally damning judgement. Just because it's China doesn't make keylogging bad. Keylogging is bad because keylogging is bad. Companies like Fullstory [0] and Hotjar [1] are used all over the western internet and effectively act as full session recorders. Sure, used well they can be used for analytics, but you could just as easily inject Fullstory or Hotjar into an in-app browser and suddenly record all data a user does. Should this be possible? No. Does it help to just ban China? I mean sure, but why should you be okay with a western company doing it?
TikTok is a short video app used mostly by younger generations. It produces highly accurate recommendations for videos to watch. We're not talking about something like a banking app, a healthcare app, or even a messaging app. It's a video-based social network. There are bigger fish to fry than TikTok in almost every single possible category of app. Yet, TikTok is always brought up because it's from China.
[0]: https://www.fullstory.com/
[1]: https://www.hotjar.com/