cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12876226
The measure that sailed unanimously through the House Energy and Commerce Committee would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform — used by roughly 170 million Americans — is quickly spun off from its China-linked parent company, ByteDance.
US officials have cited the widespread commercial availability of US citizens’ data as another source of national security risk. The US government and other domestic law enforcement agencies are also known to have purchased US citizens’ data from commercial data brokers.
Its performative. There is at least logic in thinking that if TikTok had US ownership that it’d be more aligned to US interests but unless it was bought by a mega US corp, it’d likely just be a shell operation and nothing changes.
Why single out TikTok and not Chinese nationals buying US real estate, driving up the cost of commercial and residential rents?
Heavily agree that this is equally problematic, but unfortunately it seems like the choice has already been made that real estate “investments” cannot be allowed to fail. It’s the same reason why they aren’t also targeting US-based companies that have been shown to have ties to foreign rivals, they’re literally just playing politics. Sucks, but for now this at least opens the door for further regulation in the area