TikTok

House panel unanimously approves bill that could ban TikTok

The measure that sailed unanimously through the House Energy and Commerce Committee would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform — used by roughly 170 million Americans — is quickly spun off from its China-linked parent company, ByteDance.

USG wants TikTok to be operated by a US commercial data broker :thinking:

US officials have cited the widespread commercial availability of US citizens’ data as another source of national security risk. The US government and other domestic law enforcement agencies are also known to have purchased US citizens’ data from commercial data brokers.

USG has been purchasing US citizens’ data from commercial data brokers :scream:

Policymakers fear the Chinese government could use the personal information to identify intelligence targets or to facilitate mass disinformation campaigns that could disrupt elections and sow other chaos.

Above can be rephrased as…
"US policymakers have been using personal information to identify intelligence targets or to facilitate mass disinformation campaigns that could disrupt elections and sow other chaos.

Above is daily bread for USG because…

…governments can already buy vast troves of personal data from data brokers or use commercial spyware to hack individual phones with ease.

Sell to a US commercial data broker or this type of campaign would intensify…

Must the buyer be an American corporate? If not, any e-commerce company that is not Chinese-owned is potential buyer e.g. MELI, SHOP, SE… If must be US incorporated, the most suitable one is AMZN.

Disclosure: Own SHOP and SE. Now wondering whether I should buy AMZN in anticipation.

The goal of the proposed bill is not to ban TikTok, is only a threat. The intelligence community of USA wants access to TikTok. Most foreign companies won’t let them has access. TikTok has to be an US company. So, the goal of the proposed bill is to force Bytedance to divest TikTok to an US company.

Elon makes typo error.

https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1768453579013312662

Essentially, any social media unwilling to provide personal data to the intelligence community would be banned.

Screen Shot 2024-03-15 at 2.06.23 PM

In social media, often read people commented US politicians are dumb. The truth is they are wolves in sheepskin. They are deeper than I thought. Ofc, those naturalized Americans who support whatever policies that US vs other nations would see their rights diminish and quality of life drop… are more than dumb.

Wolves. Want to buy a future $1T for $50B?



Mark is right that ill-informed Americans are fooled into thinking that the narrative of applying principle of reciprocity in this case is correct.