@rbreich I see this take or something like it from a lot of infosec people. Like, yes, China is doing bad stuff. So are Meta & Google, & in the bargain they're posing a greater immediate security risk to individuals & to our society than TikTok.
@rbreich Meta, Xitter, MSLinkedIn are just mad they're not the favorite data vacuum, so they're "competing" by making their government, which they bought and paid for, go after the foreign competition, in typical Surveillance capitalist style.
This isn't the media narrative though because, you know.. only 6 companies run the media for America.
And somehow we're not protesting in the streets about this.
@rbreich I would rather the chinese communists have my data than the globe-spanning, endlessly warring US capitalist empire and its 1000s of forward military bases, globe spanning CIA/intelligence apparatus, and its forever increasing, bloated "defense" budgets that always seem to wind up used for offense.
Fuck this analysis. Its time to stop being a capitalist pig and put your feet back on the ground. We all share this earth, it does not belong to the US.
@rbreich
Anybody remember the Kasperzy malware protection software? Obama made everybody in the Executive Department, including the DoD, take it off their machines because it was sending dumps to the KGB. One of the first things Trump did was tell everybody to put the Kasperzy spyware back on their machines. Hopefully Biden has ordered it removed again.
@rbreich What they’re basically saying is you can steal and manipulate data from US citizens if the company is US owned.
This bill doesn’t even remotely get to the root of the mega-social-media problem. #regulation#tictocban#x#meta#bluesky
When Mark Zuckerberg puts his goal to remove the USA from the world in writing, because it is in his way, then I'll worry about him as much as the Chinese Communist Party!
Read more before putting takes like this out into the world.
@rbreich These arguments are typically used to distract from the fact that TikTok is a propaganda factory in waiting (and possibly it's not even waiting), subject to direct and immediate control of the Chinese government at a moment's notice if they want to do that. There's no due process in that country, nothing that would stop the General Secretary from snapping up the data tomorrow. So, I could do with a big all-encompassing privacy bill, sure, but let's ditch the whataboutism.
@rbreich this TikTok move is not about our civilian data. All of our data is already out there. Everyone that wants our data can already get it. This is about government data. Similar to the recent Chinese malware on routers bought from China. That said, selling TikTok to the billionaire cabal is not an improvement. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. I think the billionaires are pissy there's something they don't control.