Not that it personally affects me- I’m not in USA and it’s one of the platforms I dislike the most. But I can’t find a concise explanation for why.
I’ve searched for news articles and those I found either don’t address the reason behind the ban and talk about US politics, or are vague about it, saying it would collect user sensitive data.
I’ve also found lists of countries banning TikTok from government devices, okay I understand that, and some countries banning it completely because of cultural sensitivities, which I doubt is US’ case.
Fair enough. What kind of user sensitive data would it be collecting? Isn’t this what most social media apps do already? What makes TikTok stand out in this regard?
It’s performative posturing by politicians who want to look tough on China and/or have been (or are pretending to be) convinced by TikTok’s competitors that they are a national security threat because they gather lots of data, just like every other app does.
If law makers really wanted to prevent the data being vacuumed up, they could pass meaningful privacy laws, but they own stock in companies that compete with TikTok and that also profit by vacuuming up everyone’s data, so they pretend that it’s just Chinese apps we have to worry about.
Except, since we have no privacy laws, if China wants to get the data, it’s perfectly legal for them to buy it from data brokers. We could enact laws that make what they (and Facebook, and Google, and…and…) are doing is illegal, but data brokers make billions, and politicians enjoy enabling billionaires in their exploitation of the general public. So the ban doesn’t stop China from bring able to get data on American citizens.
What the ban really does is (try to) force TikToks owners (Bytedance) to sell/divest to US companies that will enrich lawmakers and those lobbying the lawmakers.
Ars Technica has some good write-ups on the situation, and Techdirt has far more, and they don’t pull punches. I suspect EFF has something written on the subject too.