A draft agreement with a federal agency to avoid a ban would have given US agencies unprecedented access to TikTok's facilities and servers.
  • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
    English
    124·
    2 years ago

    To allay fears the short-form video app could be used as a Chinese surveillance tool, the federal government nearly transformed it into an American one instead.

    Sounds bad.

    The agreement would let agencies examine TikTok’s US facilities, records, and servers with minimal prior notice and veto the hiring of any executive involved with leading TikTok US data security organization. It would also let US agencies block changes to the app’s terms of service in the US and order the company to subject itself to various audits, all on TikTok’s dime, per Forbes. In extreme cases, the agreement would allow government organizations to demand TikTok temporarily shut off functioning in the US.

    The agreements, if accepted as written at the time, would open TikTok’s US operations up to supervision by a number of external third-party auditors and source code inspectors.

    Sounds… not at all like what the US government would do if it wanted to use Tiktok for surveillance (no automated collection of data? No mandated installation of monitoring gear like the NSA was rumored to do decades before Snowden came along?). However, it does sound like exactly what the US would do if it wanted to prevent the use of Tiktok for Chinese surveillance.

    The US government is 100% comfortable with spying on its citizens, but IDK how they got from point A to point B in this particular instance. Well, actually I do; the article will get more clicks this way.

    • Cows Look Like Maps@sh.itjust.works
      31·
      2 years ago

      tl;dr We just don’t want China spying on us with TikTok. We’ve already got the whole surveillance state thing figured out.

      (but actually, read their comment)

      • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
        English
        3·
        2 years ago

        “Can you remember any white people we’ve ever bombed? The Germans! Those are the only ones. And that’s only because they were trying to cut in on our action. They wanted to dominate the world. Bullshit, that’s our fuckin’ job!” -George Carlin

        • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
          21·
          2 years ago

          Many other Europeans died as a result of Allied bombing in WW2. They were invaded by the Germans and made to work for the war effort. WW2 was terrible for everyone in Europe. And these bombs weren’t accurate so just being in the next town from a big factory would be risky.

          France, Germany, and Italy were essentially developing nations after the war. Other smaller countries were worse. The only untouched places were like northern Norway. This is what authoritarian nations do. They destroy everything around them, including themselves.

          • espentan@lemmy.world
            41·
            2 years ago

            Northern Norway, 1940:
            (Narvik, 13th of June 1940, photo by a German soldier)

            I see your point, though. Much of Norway was left untouched. Physically, anyway.