FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores
As much as the US government does questionable and bad things (and it does), the CCP is worse. The US still has at least the semblance of the rule of law. There is still some separation between corporations and the government.<p>Corporations in China are extensions of the state and tools of foreign policy in a way they just aren&#x27;t in the West. The US government can also be replaced. That&#x27;s why China and the US just aren&#x27;t equivalent here and why something like Tiktok is of greater risk and concern than any US Big Tech app or platform.<p>Yes, US law enforcement can get access to, say, messages. There&#x27;s a process for that. Some of it is pretty questionable (eg FISA court, pen registers, NSLs) but at least there&#x27;s a process. I don&#x27;t for a second believe that US intelligence has a firehose of everything posted on Twitter and Facebook just because I don&#x27;t believe the US government has the storage capacity required.<p>Secondly, China is completely protectionist about access to its market. There are Chinese versions for every app and platform. China uses access to its market as a giant carrot to exact concessions from Western companies but they&#x27;re chasing a phantom: China will never let any Western company &quot;win&quot; in China.<p>Part of getting access to China is playing ball with the CCP, which means giving access to data on a whole level above the US government. It means enforcing the Great Firewall and, for example, censoring mention of the Tiannamen Square massacre.<p>Trade needs to be recipricoal so if China restricts access to the Chinese market, I see no issue with Western countries responding in kind.<p>The threat model for something like Tiktok is a whole lot worse than any Western equivalent.