this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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It's absolutely not subjective. China is an enemy of the US, and an extremely hostile one, just one large enough that the US is forced to deal with them.
The fact that the government is doing it absolutely is different than a government not taking enough steps to prevent it. The government has authority, and the government can take away your ability to limit the risk by not doing business with malicious companies. A totalitarian government is not in any way similar to big companies that do not have authority behaving badly.
The US absolutely does business with hackers. It does not directly facilitate shit like ransomware and other malicious businesses on US companies, which is the relevant part here, and the part that is a threat to national security.
The fact that an enemy state that routinely supports attacks on US businesses and end users controls a major network is a huge national security threat. There's a reason other governments are also banning their equipment from being used in critical infrastructure and also extremely uncomfortable with entities controlled by the Chinese government getting too big of a foothold. Everything their government does is a national security threat to any country in the west in all cases. TikTok should have been banned a long time ago. The fact that it's controlled by the Chinese government is more than enough.
China can be an enemy of the US, but that doesn't mean all US citizens view China as enemy. You can find a tons of creators on YouTube defending China's way to do things and be friend with which I found disgusting.
I would also believe US also does pre-plan malware to key infrastructures including power, communications, and health care in other potential adversaries, not limited to China. To them is also a matter of national security. It is just simply a cat and mouse game. For randomware though, I didn't heard much a Chinese group doing it, but more by Russia and North Korea.
The keyword here is "uncomfortable", but I highly doubt should this translate to a law. If one can make laws because feeling "uncomfortable" without concrete evidences, that US will become more authoritarian than its commitment on fairness and freedom.
Before banning TikTok, we need to assess what threat it poses, not because others say so. The majority of threats people claim of TikTok is "it is a spyware because Chinese government can view data when they wants", and "it can effect elections". For the first one, a federal level privacy and data collection bill is far more appropriate. This is long due already, and don't do GDPR's where companies can self claim compliant but requires an accredited independent auditor. Second one is more tricky. The root cause can be think as its algorithm being too effective. Maybe a rating system for algorithm like for game would work?
Again, law should be applied equally and without discrimination based on ideological differences or political preferences. Even it looks to be "national security", it must be assessed thoroughly with concrete evidences, rather some hypothetical claims.