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.
So these two provisions caught my eye; under the draft agreement, executive branch agencies (the article gives the example of the DOJ or DOD) would have the ability to (among other things)
Examine TikTok’s U.S. facilities, records, equipment and servers with minimal or no notice,
In some circumstances, require ByteDance to temporarily stop TikTok from functioning in the United States.
In the case of the former, would that include user data? Given the general US gov approach to digital privacy I assume so, and granting yourself the power to do the things you’re afraid China is doing seems appropriately ironic for us.
As far as the latter, I wonder how broadly “some circumstances” is defined. If the language is broad enough, that would open the door to de facto censorship if a certain trend or info around a certain event is spreading on the site right as the government magically decides it needs to pause TikTok due to, “uh, terrorism or something, don’t worry about it.”
I’m also curious how durable this agreement would be. How hard would it be for the next administration to decide to pitch a fit and renegotiate or throw out the deal pending a new, even harsher agreement?
It would seem to me that this is pretty nakedly an assertion of power over an entity based outside the US, and not an agreement meant to protect US citizens in any meaningful way. I think any defense of this agreement as a way to protect privacy or mental health or whatever won’t be able to honestly reconcile with the fact that these exact same concerns exist with domestic social media companies
I mean, it’s not just because it’s outside the US. It’s because ByteDance is legally required to collect and hand over data to the Chinese government. And it’s well beyond what any other social media app does plus unnecessary for the functionality of the app. This is not about xenophobia. This is legit about trying to stop the Chinese government from spying on US citizens who are too ignorant to realize what that app is. They just care about stupid videos.
Edit: for example, if you’re on a government network, there’s a good chance half your calls to GitHub hosted content will timeout with no response. Why? Because GitHub has load balances that direct traffic occasionally through a server hosted under Chinese jurisdiction. That route is explicitly blocked so any time your request gets sent there, it simply fails. China is not a trusted foreign government under US law. And the Chinese government found a novel way to legally spy on the United States and the citizenry are too stupid to prevent it so the government is trying to fix it without calling the public a bunch of idiots like they are.
So these two provisions caught my eye; under the draft agreement, executive branch agencies (the article gives the example of the DOJ or DOD) would have the ability to (among other things)
In the case of the former, would that include user data? Given the general US gov approach to digital privacy I assume so, and granting yourself the power to do the things you’re afraid China is doing seems appropriately ironic for us.
As far as the latter, I wonder how broadly “some circumstances” is defined. If the language is broad enough, that would open the door to de facto censorship if a certain trend or info around a certain event is spreading on the site right as the government magically decides it needs to pause TikTok due to, “uh, terrorism or something, don’t worry about it.”
I’m also curious how durable this agreement would be. How hard would it be for the next administration to decide to pitch a fit and renegotiate or throw out the deal pending a new, even harsher agreement?
It would seem to me that this is pretty nakedly an assertion of power over an entity based outside the US, and not an agreement meant to protect US citizens in any meaningful way. I think any defense of this agreement as a way to protect privacy or mental health or whatever won’t be able to honestly reconcile with the fact that these exact same concerns exist with domestic social media companies
I mean, it’s not just because it’s outside the US. It’s because ByteDance is legally required to collect and hand over data to the Chinese government. And it’s well beyond what any other social media app does plus unnecessary for the functionality of the app. This is not about xenophobia. This is legit about trying to stop the Chinese government from spying on US citizens who are too ignorant to realize what that app is. They just care about stupid videos.
Edit: for example, if you’re on a government network, there’s a good chance half your calls to GitHub hosted content will timeout with no response. Why? Because GitHub has load balances that direct traffic occasionally through a server hosted under Chinese jurisdiction. That route is explicitly blocked so any time your request gets sent there, it simply fails. China is not a trusted foreign government under US law. And the Chinese government found a novel way to legally spy on the United States and the citizenry are too stupid to prevent it so the government is trying to fix it without calling the public a bunch of idiots like they are.