Is this supposed to be China only or should the rest of the world also be suspicious and ban e.g. Meta services especially since they don't have any competing service that is popular in the US?
Stop. This is stupid. People are allowed to have opinions on politics in other countries. Every other country in the world sure as hell isn’t shy about opining on US elections. Then you want to act all indignant if the US opines on your elections? Fuck off.
The thing is that Elon Musk is not just some guy with an opinion. He's some guy who has an opinion and owns a major social media platform where he tweaks the algorithm to serve his own purposes, similar to what TikTok is being accused of.
In democracies the power of government and media are supposed to be different branches of the system. When this is violated it's considered a threat to democracy. Like in Italy Berlusconi's media empire, etc.
This is an odd statement. GOP was in power from 2016-2020. People confuse entertainment and social media with news sources. Nearly anyone can pay to advertise with traditional or social media.
I think you're trying to describe Twitter and the other "conservative" media sources? These are for entertainment, but traditionally would advertise whoever paid them. Now the companies have been purchased or created to spread misinformation.
Non allied nations should absolutely ban US apps. Additionally, all government devices should have strict security features. It would be wise to also protect certain places from all electronic monitoring.
Excuse me, what? They do it all the time. Vaccines and Israel's genocide are just the tip of the iceberg of the propaganda machine broadcast through Meta's services. Make no mistake, this is not about China.
TikTok had a huge negative impact on special interest groups that want to continue to allow the holocaust of our days to continue happening and the genocidal state to continue to behave with impunity.
The U.S. is already infiltrated by people working for foreign interests. The thing is, it's not infiltrated by China's or Russia's operatives.
Are you saying the United States is a bastion of democracy? It's not even classified as a full democracy. The list of full democracies are Canada, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, and Mauritius.
United States is classified as a flawed democracy. Partly because sweeping decisions like this one are made by Supreme Court Justices who nobody voted for and who hold their position for life.
Or maybe that's what you meant and you were being sarcastic with the quotation marks around "bastion of democracy"?
I am not making a statement, mostly portraying the official stance from the USA government that has just had their decision to ban TikTok come into effect.
As in, due to their official stance, we should not expect reciprocity at all.
But you did pique my curiosity, where did you get that list of "full democracies"?
In almost every country, the President or the Parliament selects Supreme Court Justices. In some countries, the President picks x, and the Parliament picks y. They don't have terms. Direct democracy does not make sense when selecting justices.
Said 'bastion of democracy' is a flawd democracy [1] who voted in a president who allegedly (facepalm) initiated a coup and got away with it. Also, a convicted criminal.
You could say it is a bastion of liberty but I'm from Europe and women here have reasonable abortion and sexuality rights.
I wouldn't refer to USA as very democratic or China as a center of human rights violation.
If there is no blanket ban, there would have to be many laws, rules, regulations and restrictions prohibiting the software from government buildings, etc.
In addition to the data points: contacts, location, audio, video, etc, malicious actors can learn a lot through deduction. That's before any sort of manipulation.
>If Chinese apps are allowed, then China has a big advantage over USA
Historically speaking the biggest threat by far to the lives and livelihood of US citizens is the US government and corporate elite. Giving them more power to control what information the population can access is much more dangerous to the average American than giving the Chinese government some data.
Do you understand what kind of information can be derived from 150 million smart phones?