The national security concerns are of course real and massive; imagine what you can do if you can reach every single individual of another country with personalized content, and collect the most insanely detailed information on each of these individuals.
This is the next level, superseding many/most other means of power.
What "insanely detailed" information are you concerned about?
Are you as concerned about this "insanely detailed" information being collected by US companies? If not, what differentiates your concern when the information goes to foreign companies?
I am equally concerned about data collection by any and all companies and governments - these are being discussed regularly.
The potential international/cyber warfare aspect seems to have been ignored so far.
"Using our arsenal of forward deployed apps, how would population of country X feel if we took back that piece of land that is ours, and how could we make them see things our way?"
>Because the US govt can be trusted but the Chinese govt can't. America is a liberal democracy seeking world peace.
A democracy still has the full capacity to do the worst damage to foreign countries for their national interests. We know that all the way back to the Athenian Democracy. It's "democracy at home, fuck the others to advance our well-being abroad".
The US had bombed, invaded, toppled governments, supported dictatorships, etc. countries all over the world, not sure where it got the moral upper hand.
Heck, using the name "HenryKissinger" as if it's a good thing, says it all. If it's irony, then, well, you already know my point.
>For the record, I have a college degree, I'm in my late twenties, I was raised in a liberal household, I'm a liberal, I have no religious beliefs, and I'm voting for Joe Biden.
Which means squat. Democrats have been as bad, if not worse, offenders as Republicans when it comes to foreign wars and furthering US interests.
Has it ever occurred to you that your picture of the world is absolutely black and white, yet there’s no such thing as absolutes in nature?
This isn’t snark by the way, I’d just like to encourage you to take off your star-spangled glasses sometimes...
How might this work? Could you detail what information the People's Liberation Army might collect, and how they might use it to enact your fears? Please be as specific as you can.
> For the record, I have a college degree, I'm in my late twenties, I was raised in a liberal household, I'm a liberal, I have no religious beliefs, and I'm voting for Joe Biden.
I'm curious to know what you think that clarification achieves for you.
> imagine what you can do if you can reach every single individual of another country with personalized content
Are you sure you're not talking about google.com here? Way more people across way more ages use that than tiktok and it also does tracking for the purpose of personalization.
Your reasoning would result in banning Google products (from the Play Store controlling most mobile computers across the planet to Gmail and YouTube) from all countries except the USA, and to a lesser extent banning Facebook products, Apple products, etc. Tiktok barely makes it onto the radar compared to those.
No need to imagine, US companies and the NSA have been doing this for years. You've pretty much described the business model of major "Social Media" companies.
This is the next level, superseding many/most other means of power.