@taylorlorenz Look who opposes this bill. Trump, Musk, Marjorie Taylor Greene. And AOC, (who suffers from millennial self-interest)
All the wrong people are aligned to protect TikTok
75% of TikTok users are 18-34
AOC is 34, and is a Millennial.
Maybe I am not understanding your point
Thanks. @MisuseCase
So only 30.7% of #TikTok users are older than 34, I.E.
Older #Millenials (Born before 1990)
#GenX,
#BabyBoomers, #SilentGeneration, and maybe a few exceptions from the #GIgeneration.
@allanb My point is that you are using a generational term in the sense of “those damn kids who won’t get off my lawn” for a Congresswoman in her mid-30s and also incidentally for me, a woman in her middle age who is a parent with a mortgage.
It’s absurd and kind of inappropriate.
@allanb That’s a pretty silly thing to say given the OP’s post about very real financial stakes in the TikTok bill, which AOC doesn’t have (unlike some other Representatives).
Also *I* don’t use TikTok contrary to your Millennial stereotype, thanks very much. I know some people who do. They use it to promote their businesses or work (fitness training, live performance, crafts, etc.).
AOC may not have monetary interest in TikTok, but she has generational interest (her national constituents are largely Millennials and younger). TikTok is mostly an artifact of Millennials and younger.
The fact remains it is a spying platform, and has been used to put surveillance on journalists and others.
National security interests are being weighed against generational-centered social platforms, and one would expect her to object.
Despite Trump/MTG being in the same corner
@allanb Well, here’s the thing. I am one of those silly vapid Millennials but I’m also a 15-year cybersecurity professional who’s reasonably familiar with issues like tracking and surveillance in America and the threats posed by various state actors.
TikTok isn’t really a spying platform any more than any other commercial social media network, but Meta, for whom it is a serious competitor, would like the public and the government to think otherwise.
/1
@allanb Even our intelligence agencies, after marching along with Meta beating the Yellow Peril drum for a while, have admitted that TikTok isn’t used for spying.
It doesn’t sell data on its users to American data brokers that they can buy from, which they don’t like, which is part of why they wanted to ban it (or now, they want to get it sold to an American owner).
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/16/tiktok-china-security-threat/
/2
@allanb And now Steve Mnuchin is trying to get investors together to buy TikTok. Peter Thiel of Palantir seems pretty interested too. They’d like to do to it what Elon Musk did to Twitter, or do what they accuse the CCP of doing with it (which they are not actually doing).
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/14/1238520324/steve-mnuchin-buy-tiktok-ban-house-bill
And now there’s this whole thing about members of Congress having a financial interest in TikTok being sold to American owners and benefiting companies they hold a stake in.
/3
@allanb So “TikTok is used for spying” seems like a pretty flimsy excuse for anticompetitive behavior by Meta, or various shady people getting their hands on young people’s data and making money off it, or both. Or doing what they claim China is doing!
Anyway this is all a bunch of jingoistic nonsense and we should get some real privacy legislation instead but we won’t, and this won’t get us any closer to it.
/4
@allanb Also I don’t know about you but. I’m not on board with the idea of banning something just because the kids are into it and I don’t necessarily get the appeal.
/end
@Nazani @allanb The U.S. has a version of that too (with a few extra steps):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
Also American law enforcement agencies get our data from American social media companies, cell phone companies, etc. to surveil and harm us, American citizens. They use this to harm women seeking reproductive healthcare in states where it’s illegal, for example.
1/2
@Nazani @allanb Accusations of what the CCP is doing by mining TikTok user data seem pretty unserious (IMO) in comparison to what I *know* intelligence and law enforcement agencies in my own country where I live do with my data and my fellow citizens’ data. The only problem that my government has with TikTok is that they’re not in on the action.
2/2
@Nazani @allanb China can do all that (it does all that) with or without TikTok.
As for getting hold of Americans’ personal data? Take it up with OPM, whose poorly secured database of clearance applicants allowed China to get their data in 2015.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach
(If there are any Americans who actually need to worry about China getting their data, it’s those with security clearances.)
1/2
@Nazani @allanb Or talk to Experian, one of the three major credit reporting bureaus which holds sensitive personal and financial data on millions of Americans. They keep suffering from data breaches and at least one of those was likely a Chinese state-sponsored hack.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/experian-hacked-tmobile_n_560e0d30e4b0af3706e0481e
I will believe the U.S. government cares about China getting my data when it makes Experian clean up its act.
2/2
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