I mean, I mostly agree with what your saying above this, but this particular line I disagree with.
People get blackmailed all the time for different reasons. If I'm looking for a person in a hardware/software company that has weaknesses, having a full view of their social media is a great starting place.
The propaganda part.
Remember a month ago when everyone's feed had a video in it from the TikTok CEO encouraging people to side with TikTok.
They are scared shitless of not being mostly in control of that kind of power when applied to Americans. They are worried that the next Saddam is going to pay TikTok, or some future foreign competitor to torpedo whatever the next WMD lie is (and this will be done with Chinese blessing because that will be in their geopolitical interest).
The possibility was easy to ignore back when all the social media giants were American and the feds had jurisdiction and soft power over them. Now there's a new entrant that China has jurisdiction and soft power over. They want the status quo back. Hence why all the bill language is mostly about preventing foreign ownership.
Remember how Elon makes it a point to stick himself into everybody's Twitter feed and even fired a guy for not maximizing this further?
They can't do that with "hypothetical Chinese Elon" so long as said Elon remains in good standing with the powers that be there.
China has no jurisdiction over you… there’s no real punishing to relate to what you have viewed on TikTok, so why are your viewing habits a threat to national security?
I don’t believe this to be a zero sum game. This is further extension of authoritarianism from a government that is terrified of anything short of pervasive colonoscopy-tier data collection.