For the past four years the Biden administration and TikTok have been negotiating a deal to resolve national security concerns posed by the Chinese-owned app. Here’s a look inside a draft of the deal.
Ama Adams, a managing partner and CFIUS expert at Ropes & Gray, said that some of the government powers in the draft agreement were somewhat typical — including the right to inspect a company’s facilities and materials, and the use of a third-party monitor.
Yep.
But “setting up a structure that has allegiance to the United States — I’ve never seen language, per se, to that extent.”
Fair enough, but this only came about because Tiktok clearly has allegiance to a conflicting foreign power. Facebook and Google aren’t required to have allegiance to the United States because they’re allowed to do their own thing, because they seem like they’re doing their own thing and that’s fine under our system. This is like saying “No one else has to go on house arrest; it’s unfair to single me out like this” after you robbed a liquor store.
These provisions seem designed to address fears — expressed by the Biden Administration, the Trump Administration, and legislators in both parties — that TikTok’s foreign ownership and control threaten U.S. national security.
Incorrect. This is designed to address “fears” that Tiktok functions explicitly as a surveillance tool for the Chinese government. It is required to do so by Chinese law, and contains features which are highly unusual which appear designed to spy on its users. That’s above and beyond even the extremely invasive data-collection which most other social media apps also do (scanning your contacts, doing facial recognition on you, listening to your microphone, etc). I think it’s fair to say that gathering that level of data on millions of individual people and then handing the information to the Chinese government on demand is a unique and dangerous capability which should be addressed in some fashion.
There actually are technologies (e.g. routers) where simply the “ownership and control” is an issue, and maybe those should be treated as a bigger deal than they are, but that’s not this.
That would raise serious concerns about the government’s ability to censor or distort what people are saying or watching on TikTok.
Bro, you are lying. Again, they’re actually fine with doing that in some other platforms, which I don’t agree with either, but that very clearly isn’t this. Forbes is only saying that this is the issue to try to distort the facts in order to oppose putting Tiktok under this kind of control. Why Forbes is lying in this specific manner I have no idea, but I’m genuinely very curious why they are.
Why are you reacting this way to laws which seem very specifically aimed at curbing (or attempting to curb) the use of Tiktok for Chinese surveillance? If the US government was demanding that Tiktok install a keylogger and provide the data to it, that would justify what you’re saying. But, as I keep repeatedly saying with sourcing, it’s the opposite. Do you have an argument for why this represents any kind of US surveillance, beyond just repeating the assertion?
Edit: Let me ask in a little more distilled form. Why, if the US government wanted to use Tiktok for surveillance, would they keep attempting to ban it from various classes of people’s phones, and keep talking about banning it from everybody’s? That seems counterproductive to the surveillance mission, no?
It’s gotten to the point where if I see a story in Forbes, I just automatically assume that the reality is the opposite.
The US government has claimed for itself the authority to eavesdrop on any and all internet communication inside the United States, alter the plotlines of TV and movies, and (if you accept that Trump can speak for the US government) pull the FCC licenses of news networks that report news the president doesn’t like. Nothing in what’s proposed on Tiktok comes close to any of that along any of those axes; it’s factually wrong to say it’s “unprecedented.” I actually don’t agree with any of those things, but putting what they now want to do in Tiktok beyond any of those categories of behavior is a gross exaggeration.
Yep.
Fair enough, but this only came about because Tiktok clearly has allegiance to a conflicting foreign power. Facebook and Google aren’t required to have allegiance to the United States because they’re allowed to do their own thing, because they seem like they’re doing their own thing and that’s fine under our system. This is like saying “No one else has to go on house arrest; it’s unfair to single me out like this” after you robbed a liquor store.
Incorrect. This is designed to address “fears” that Tiktok functions explicitly as a surveillance tool for the Chinese government. It is required to do so by Chinese law, and contains features which are highly unusual which appear designed to spy on its users. That’s above and beyond even the extremely invasive data-collection which most other social media apps also do (scanning your contacts, doing facial recognition on you, listening to your microphone, etc). I think it’s fair to say that gathering that level of data on millions of individual people and then handing the information to the Chinese government on demand is a unique and dangerous capability which should be addressed in some fashion.
There actually are technologies (e.g. routers) where simply the “ownership and control” is an issue, and maybe those should be treated as a bigger deal than they are, but that’s not this.
Bro, you are lying. Again, they’re actually fine with doing that in some other platforms, which I don’t agree with either, but that very clearly isn’t this. Forbes is only saying that this is the issue to try to distort the facts in order to oppose putting Tiktok under this kind of control. Why Forbes is lying in this specific manner I have no idea, but I’m genuinely very curious why they are.
Etc. etc.
So… Now Tiktok gets to be a surveillance tool for the US government like every other major social media? Wonderful.
Why are you reacting this way to laws which seem very specifically aimed at curbing (or attempting to curb) the use of Tiktok for Chinese surveillance? If the US government was demanding that Tiktok install a keylogger and provide the data to it, that would justify what you’re saying. But, as I keep repeatedly saying with sourcing, it’s the opposite. Do you have an argument for why this represents any kind of US surveillance, beyond just repeating the assertion?
Edit: Let me ask in a little more distilled form. Why, if the US government wanted to use Tiktok for surveillance, would they keep attempting to ban it from various classes of people’s phones, and keep talking about banning it from everybody’s? That seems counterproductive to the surveillance mission, no?