Posted on 03/29/2023 4:32:44 AM PDT by FarCenter
US lawmakers are expected this week to continue their push to ban the country’s fastest-growing social media platform, TikTok, after the company’s CEO fell short of assuaging concerns about the app’s supposed national security risks.
Shou Zi Chew’s testimony in Washington last week may have failed to convince critics that Chinese ownership of TikTok was not cause for alarm. But instead of raising public awareness of alleged security risks, lawmakers turned the spotlight on their limited understanding of the subject while turning Chew into an overnight celebrity for his poise under pressure.
Susan Shirk, chair of the University of California San Diego’s 21st Century China Center, commented on the optics of the hearing.
“The rudeness of the congresspeople was an embarrassment to American society and political system. It certainly reinforced the growing anti-Americanism in China,” she wrote in an email to Asia Times.
That sentiment was supported by coverage from What’s on Weibo, a website that follows trends across Chinese social media platforms.
“Mostly, people admire how he stood up against Congress despite being ‘bullied’ by American officials and ‘defended’ China’s interests although he is Singaporean himself. Some called him a ‘solitary hero,’” wrote Manya Koetse, the website’s founder.
“Chew himself has become super popular on Chinese social media […] where he has become idolized by some (‘I won’t even compare you with the stars, you’re much better than the stars.’),” she noted.
Surveillance Capitalism
It also appears the publicity failed to sell the proposed ban to the 150 million Tiktok users in the United States.
In one highlight from the hearing, shared widely on TikTok and Twitter, Chew questioned the security of other firms.
“I don’t think the ownership is the issue here. With a lot of respect, American social companies do not have a good track record when it comes to data security and privacy, just look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica – and that’s just one example.”
Justin Hendrix, CEO of Tech Policy Press, elaborated on Chew’s point in an editorial posted over the weekend.
“Indeed. TikTok is not a product of Chinese communism, it is a product of American surveillance capitalism. If Congress wants to address the app’s underlying harms, it should ban surveillance advertising, not TikTok.”
Commentary online also took lawmakers to task for being uninformed about technology, a criticism that has followed previous hearings to question tech executives.
Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC) took the brunt of that ridicule, after asking, “does TikTok access the home WiFi network?”
Failure to singularly address tic-toc in legislation is further proof of the extent to which China owns American politicians…
Republicans are stupid for bringing it up this way.
Bring in app programmers and ask them about Tiktok copying and pasting content and returning it to China.
Ask them about how the app reconfigures itself to hide what its doing.
Ask about Chinese app makers and how they’re all beholden to Chinese intelligence.
Then make the point that American apps are as well, but we don’t need TWO eyes looking at everything we do.
The Restrict Act (TikTok Bill): Another Trojan Horse of Governmental Surveillance
Asterisks mine.
Mises Caucus
@LPMisesCaucus
The RESTRICT Act is not limited to just TikTok. It gives the government authority over all forms of communication domestic or abroad and grants powers to “enforce any mitigation measure to address any risk” to national security now and in any “potential future transaction”
6:18 AM · Mar 26, 2023
“The rudeness of the congresspeople was an embarrassment to American society and political system.”
Bite me.
When politicians from both sides of the aisle team up. It should cause alarm for everyone.
The last thing politicians want is free, unfettered communications among the electorate.
“The word ‘bipartisan’ means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.” - George Carlin
Michael Shellenberger
@ShellenbergerMD
“By conflating the anti-establishment politics of domestic populists with acts of war by foreign enemies, it justified turning weapons of war against Americans citizens. It turned the public arenas where social and political life take place into surveillance traps and targets for mass psychological operations. The crime is the routine violation of Americans’ rights by unelected officials who secretly control what individuals can think and say.”
8:42 PM · Mar 28, 2023
Another example of why the 17th Amendment needs to be repealed.. the uniparty and its masters on full display
Q: Why did FNC allow Carlson to discuss it?
The whole thing is a farce. Instagram, Facebook, Google etc all strip mine your activity for the US government, feed you mind rotting content, and do everything they accuse TikTok of.
The actual problem with TikTok is that it rapidly passed Zuckerbergs Instagram and left it in the dust. Zuckerberg called his bought and paid for congressmen to do something.
This is the same guy who spent 500 million in election throwing bribery money in the 2020 election.
DC is lying again.
The key to making democracy work is the ability of the political class to influence the electorate to vote between strictly limited choices.
Print, the “press” of the constitution, was an enabler of democracy because only those who owned printing presses and bought ink by the barrel could influence the masses. They could generally be co-opted into colluding with the political class, even when they weren’t already part of it.
Broadcast radio and TV were also controllable via licensing and the investment required to operate stations and networks.
On the other hand, the Internet is a real threat to democracy.
What’s funny is Twitter had a Tiktok style app, Vine, and shut it down as unprofitable before Tiktok got popular.
Deep State is the real threat.
The US has always been run by the Deep State. The Founding Fathers were the beginning of the Deep State. They quickly divided into two parties in order to control the “Overton Window”. The Civil War was a schism of the Deep State. The Deep State is an essential feature of US democracy.
150 million Tiktok users in the United States.
So, just under half (roughly 45%) of the US has TikTok on their phones?
Egads, no wonder there’s no OpSec anywhere anymore.
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