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Comment by gpm

4 days ago

Yes! In fact the US court system does a great job of things like that.

https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-111...

I recommend you start reading on Page 33 if you are impatient.

In extremely short. The PRC is an extremely active cyber threat, hacking things all over the US, in large part to gain access do gain access to datasets about U.S. people. Including hacks of the Goverment's Office of Personnel Management, of a credit reporting agency, a health insurance provider.

The PRC has a strategy and laws of using its relationship with Chinese companies, and through them their subsidiaries, to carry out it's intelligence activities.They specifically point to the National Security Law of 2015 and the Cybersecurity law of 2017 which require full co-operation with Chinese authorities and full access to the data.

So one half of their justification is the significant risk of China using TikTok to conduct espionage in the form of gathering a huge dataset on Americans.

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Another half of the risk is, as everyone else here is already saying, their ability to influence Americans.

This is not an entirely theoretical concern as TikTok would like you to believe, the Government reports that “ByteDance and TikTok Global have taken action in response to PRC demands to censor content outside of China”.

And all evidence is that it would happen in the US the second the PRC decided to ask for it.

14 comments

gpm

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spencerflem  4 days ago

If they wanted our datasets they could just buy it lol,

Remember Cambridge Analytica?

  • LargeWu  4 days ago

    It's not about getting our data. The TikTok algorithm is already being used to sow discord by showing stuff the PRC wants impressionable Americans to see. This ability of an adversarial foreign nation to surgically push individualized propaganda to consumers in another country is pretty unparalleled in human history. TikTok is the ultimate propaganda machine.

  • gpm  4 days ago

    They do just buy it. The opinion mentions that. It turns out they want even more data and also do things like hacking to steal it.

    > The PRC’s methods for collecting data include using “its relationships with Chinese companies,” making “strategic investments in foreign companies,” and “purchasing large data sets.” For example [...]

    In fact it treats the Chinese investment into TikTok as basically a form of "just buying it" with regards to the information gathering justification for banning it.