TikTok bidder McCourt wants users to control their data | Hacker News Reader

TikTok bidder McCourt wants users to control their data

texastribune.org

12 pointsreaperducer8 comments

As European, the more I think about this Tiktok forced sale the more uneasy it makes me. I don't like our data in Chinese hands, but the almost complete control over social media that America has almost seems worse.

From my point of view, a regulated Tiktok would have been preferable.

Are you implying that China exerts less control over social media than America?

No. Rather I think that the diversity is very valuable. Even if Tiktok by itself is worse, it makes the overall mix better.

A non-American buyer could also be a solution, again from my perspective.

There is a very striking example that happened recently. The Israel-Palestine war. What did Tiktok and Reddit do? Tiktok lets people see the atrocities being commited. Reddit on the other hand decided to go full Islamophobic. I literally saw a comment on reddit just now saying we need 500 terrorists shooting immigrants in my country. This would never have been allowed before, but they allow it now.

It's a blatant example of reddit manipulating the debate to achieve foreign policy objectives at the expense of my country.

And now America is using strong-arm tactics to forcefully acquire Tiktok, expanding the control.

>A non-American buyer could also be a solution, again from my perspective.

Read: EU-region buyer.

The first things I thought is if TikTok gets bought by a Japanese or Russian company. ByteDance probably would try to make a Sino-Japanese geopolitical scene out of it, while having it bought by Russians would raise Russian propaganda eyebrows.

I agree on the diversity principle, seems healthy to me. But disagree that America is forcing direct control here, or that China is anything but a worst-case scenario. I don't think most folks will be concerned who operates it as long as there's a semblance of accountability, which does not exist today.

> From my point of view, a regulated Tiktok would have been preferable.

A regulated TikTok is a controlled media, but there can easily be controls that aren't part of the visible regulatory structure.

All social networks will be confined to their nation states 5 years from now. The Chinese firewall will exist in every country.

Sir, this Capitalism

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