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"Darren Jones defends decision to allow app to continue running in UK as it stops working in US ahead of national ban"

Crazy how this half-a-day ban in the US triggers chatter about bans in European countries.

That's not really accurate, please see [0]. Many countries have already either partially or fully banned TikTok, the US is hardly the forerunner here.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_TikTok

It would be crazy if the US banned TikTok and similar developed countries didn't consider doing the same. All the reasons the US came to the conclusion they did apply equally well in Europe.

Europe doesn't have a competitor for TikTok. America has Facebook and Instagram that stand to win billions with a ban.

I also observe that the US tech bro billionaires have been complaining about how mean Europe is to them.

If anything, Europe is more protectionist about data security, so European nations should have a bigger concern about the claims of ByteDance siphoning user data.

Europe already implements consistent data privacy regulations for all apps operating in Europe. No particular inconsistency in singling out TikTok over Meta

The whole business plus Microsoft Safe Harbor is starting to raise the question of whether US social media (functioning as spies) should be allowed in the EU either.

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