It's no worse that what Facebook or Twitter does (or has done). I would prefer to have a plurality of options and not be limited to apps that are owned by countries the US deems "allies".
- Facebook+Twitter are US-based entities and have to follow US laws and regulations in a much more strict way than Tiktok
- They are not controlled by a politically-motivated adversarial government
You are also conflating apps "from a country" vs apps "under a country's gvmt control". I think most here would agree "apps from a plurality of countries" is a good goal to strive for, while "apps under a dictatorship's gvmt control" is not.
TikTok is run out of the United States and adheres to the same laws as Twitter and Facebook. Its CEO, Shou Chew, was just at a hearing in front of Congress last month.
As an example, do you think a US citizen personal data is as secure from requests from the CCP in e.g. Facebook as it is in Tiktok? That TikTok executives are as liable to US laws and prosecution as Facebook execs?
>That TikTok executives are as liable to US laws and prosecution as Facebook execs?
They absolutely are - again, TikTok is an American company with American employees who can be held liable if TikTok breaks the law - e.g. Shou Chew. The problem for the government is that TikTok hasn't broken any laws.
On the other hand, a citizen should be more scared of his own govt rather than foreign govt because foreign govt won't arrest him. So for an American TikTok is probably less threat than Facebook or Twitter.
I don't even know how you reach that kind of conclusion from that fact. It's not even strictly true. If I travel to China or Russia for a trip there is absolutely nothing stopping them from arresting me. It's only true if you never travel to that foreign country.
In the case of Russia they can do worse than imprison you. Just ask any number of Russia defectors who were killed on on Western soil. This is a very poorly thought out take.
I don’t think they were talking about traveling to Russia or China, they’re talking about living in the US. The vast majority of people will not travel to China or Russsia.
For instance if you discuss doing something illegal like getting an abortion in the US, only the US government really cares about that. Whether China knows is irrelevant.
This is a completely irrational argument, rooted solely in xenophobic appeals, that can be trivially dismissed by inverting the premise: Do Chinese citizens have more to fear from state control and monitoring of domestic social media services or those owned by companies outside China?
Those are not equivalent as I hint in my last paragraph, different countries and gvmt influence do have different risk factors. You can e.g. criticize the US gvmt in a US-based app with no consequences. Good luck doing that in China (that = criticizing the CCP on a Chinese-based app while living in China).
Actually it might be the other way round. Chinese will not care if you critisize US govt in private messages, but US platform might actually report you to FBI.
