• 1 Post
  • 19 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 4th, 2023

help-circle









  • But even if you grant the two premises there, that TikTok’s data collection is beyond that of other apps, and that said data is given to the PRC to access, this draft agreement’s solution to those problems is “let us access that collected data instead of them”. It implements measures that would affect future changes to TOS and policies, but I don’t see anything about scaling back what’s collected now. From what I can tell, this is just trying to replace who’s steering the ship. If the solution that “stops the Chinese government from spying on US citizens” just changes the government that’s doing the spying, I don’t see how that helps said US citizens in any way. The CPC isn’t the one who can put me on a no-fly list on a whim.

    That’s my fundamental issue with this, as well as the relevant proposed legislation; it’s not a good-faith attempt to protect US citizens.



  • So these two provisions caught my eye; under the draft agreement, executive branch agencies (the article gives the example of the DOJ or DOD) would have the ability to (among other things)

    Examine TikTok’s U.S. facilities, records, equipment and servers with minimal or no notice,

    In some circumstances, require ByteDance to temporarily stop TikTok from functioning in the United States.

    In the case of the former, would that include user data? Given the general US gov approach to digital privacy I assume so, and granting yourself the power to do the things you’re afraid China is doing seems appropriately ironic for us.

    As far as the latter, I wonder how broadly “some circumstances” is defined. If the language is broad enough, that would open the door to de facto censorship if a certain trend or info around a certain event is spreading on the site right as the government magically decides it needs to pause TikTok due to, “uh, terrorism or something, don’t worry about it.”

    I’m also curious how durable this agreement would be. How hard would it be for the next administration to decide to pitch a fit and renegotiate or throw out the deal pending a new, even harsher agreement?

    It would seem to me that this is pretty nakedly an assertion of power over an entity based outside the US, and not an agreement meant to protect US citizens in any meaningful way. I think any defense of this agreement as a way to protect privacy or mental health or whatever won’t be able to honestly reconcile with the fact that these exact same concerns exist with domestic social media companies









  • DonnieDarkmode@lemm.eetoWorld News@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 years ago

    And sometimes even those who tried to overthrow their colonizers were financially punished like how Haiti was.

    And just to bring it full circle, after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti there was a push for the French government to finally make reparations for what they did (to the tune of $28 billion). The French government said no