No thanks China!

The fundamental difference is who is in control, and for what purpose.
American spyware is controlled by corporations, and is all about selling you shit you don't need.
Chinese (and Russian) spyware is--apparently--controlled rather directly by their respective governments, and is being used to suppress democracy and increase polarization in the US and EU.
I don't like any spyware. But the latter category--spyware that's functionally state-sponsored--is clearly more immediately dangerous. The former is more like a slow-growing cancer.
- All of the US corporate social media platforms are part of the US military-industrial-intellegence complex now. Look at their boards of directors and executives. Look at the Twitter Files. Look Hamilton 68.
  Look at Reddit:
  Facebook Partners With Hawkish Atlantic Council, a NATO Lobby Group, to “Protect Democracy”
  Jessica Ashooh: The taming of Reddit and the National Security State Plant tabbed to do it
  A Reddit AMA Claiming To Be A Uyghur Quickly Exposes A CIA Asset Slandering China
  r/neoliberal was created by a neoliberal think tank » BPR Interviews: The Neoliberal Project
  .
  TikTok as well. The US already forced them to move their service to the US on an American-owned hosting provider, and they have already put people with a history of aligning with “American interests” into executive positions, like CEO Shou Zi Chew and vice president Michael Beckerman.
  They have their eye on the fediverse now: Atlantic Council » Collective Security in a Federated World
  
  Twitter files are mostly a tool for Elon Musks policy. Wiki entry shows enough of why they are problematic. The Hamilton 68 controversy isn't a big thing like you are pretending. If anything their database was misunderstood. https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-hamilton-68-russian-online-influence-tracker-2023-2?op=1
  
  There's already loads of upvote/downvote bots in the fediverse here - would not be shocked if a large portion of them are from governments
- So it's only okay for them to suppress democracy and increase polarization if they use American platforms? Because that's already happening.
- The former is more like a slow-growing cancer.
  One that we can actually fight, I might add, and we should.
  
  Absolutely.
  I mean, that's part of the reason that I'm here, rather than The Place That Shall Not Be Named. That, and because my account was permanently banned because I suggested torching the house of a someone flying a nazi flag.
- I'm not defending China here, but since Snowden we now know that American corporate spyware does serve the government. And they are suppressing democracy - this isn't a democracy yet, and peaceful protests for democracy are met with violent police resistance - Occupy, BLM, etc.
  I sincerely hope that Lemmy can grow large enough to serve as a staging ground for democratic protests in America, just because it's not corporate controlled.
- I would love to know how all the cat and cooking videos in my tiktok feed are being used to suppress democracy 🙄

My main reason is I'm an American, China (probably) can't do shit to me. But here I'm subject to so much shit America can do legally and illegally, with zero repercussions.
If China fucked me in particular over, odds are it would at least spark debate here. If America spied on my messages and stopped me from protesting something, that's just a Tuesday afternoon here.
The only reason why Congress wants to ban it, is due to pressure from news agencies and the government, because TikTok can't be controlled by the CIA. You can't manufacture consent of the people if the content comes from someone else you don't control.
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1237501725/house-vote-tiktok-ban
They'll ban tiktok but won't punish overly aggressive police.
They'll ban tiktok but won't make food or rent affordable.
They'll ban tiktok but won't denounce Israel's bullshit.
They'll ban tiktok but won't cancel student loans.
They'll ban tiktok but won't take Covid seriously.

Hah! yeah
How does Microsoft always fly under the radar?
- 2013: Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
  Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.
  The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.
  
  Well yeah, by default Microsoft holds your encryption keys. Why wouldn't they be able to unencrypt it? Implement Customer Key if you want to hold your own encryption keys.
- For fun context, Google "Microsoft Vortex Service"

Honestly way less afraid of China snooping on my data than US corporations. Only one of those groups regularly colludes with the FBI/CIA/other three letter agencies.
- only one can send armed goons to my house too

I'm not big of a fan of Chinese surveillance but to most peoples point that have already posted here, if this was about privacy then the government should be passing laws to protect consumer privacy as a whole and not just targeting Chinese companies. Really shows that the government doesn't give a shit about your privacy just who's able to get it.
- Does your government violate human rights?

- Hey, what happened at Standing Rock?
- https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1237501725/house-vote-tiktok-ban
  Advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have called the bill "censorship plain and simple," arguing that "jeopardizing access to the platform jeopardizes access to free expression."
  At 27 years old, Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost is the youngest member of Congress, and he opposes the bill.
  "I think that it is a violation of people's First Amendment rights," he said. "TikTok is a place for people to express ideas. I have many small businesses in my district and content creators in my district, and I think it's going to drastically impact them too."
  The fact that Republicans started it is enough for me to be at least suspicious of why its even being considered.
  EDIT: Also lol at "strong first amendment rights" when redneck states ban any books with queer or black characters. And lmao at "Strong first amendment rights" when people get fired for talking about forming a union, let alone even trying to make one.
- Lol comment removed for (I guess?) linking to a Wikipedia article on Chinese dissidents...
  
  I think the comment shouldn't have been removed, but principally because it is trivial to refute. The US is well aware of the fact that people calling for revolution have no teeth, while the people who actually did substantial law-breaking on Jan 6 (which itself had no teeth, but I digress) were indeed arrested.
  Meanwhile, Wikipedia's list of Chinese"dissidents" includes blatant fraudsters like Miles Guo, who fled China to evade capture for financial crimes before being imprisoned in the US for continuing to commit financial crimes, to say nothing of the "dissidents" involved in actual insurrectionary activity that killed PLA soldiers.
  
  If all you did was drop a wiki link that's a pretty worthless comment. Do you think China is the only country where dissidents get in trouble with the government? Do you think the U.S. doesn't harass (or worse) dissidents?
  Who knows, use your words

The concern about TikTok acquiring your private information for marketing purposes is a red herring. The concern of our government here is propaganda and narrative control -- power.

- Vibes-based threat modeling, a classic.
- Remind me again who was wiretapping Merkel's cell phone? China right? Oh wait no sorry, it was the USA.
  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/08/nsa-tapped-german-chancellery-decades-wikileaks-claims-merkel
  
  Who was caught wiretapping.
  Between August and September 2007 Chinese hackers were suspected of using Trojan horse spyware on various government computers, including those of the Chancellory, the Ministry of Economics and Technology, and the Ministry of Education and Research.[180] Germans officials believe Trojan viruses were inserted in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files, and approximately 160 gigabytes of data were siphoned to Canton, Lanzhou and Beijing via South Korea, on instructions from the People's Liberation Army.[181]
  From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_abroad
  It is a very long Wikipedia article (as is anything involving CIA activities abroad, to be sure).
  
  How about I share something from my own country. What I reckon is that only some of my data goes to the US government through Google, Microsoft etc. while the Chinese government controls corporations like tencent much more than the US government controls US corporations. Besides all that, services from Microsoft and Google are much harder to avoid than for example tiktok and Huawei. So the US is getting my data no matter what, I might as well limit how much of it goes to china.
- looks like US propaganda machine is working smoothly in Europe

A whole lot of censoring on these posts on lemmy.ml

If I had a nickel for every time I saw one of these posts, I'd have two nickels, Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice on the same day
- And posted by the same account that was created yesterday!

Fuck the USA and fuck China. Spyware sucks no matter where it's from.
- Common "both-sides" fence sitter L

- Chinese-police-in-America units
  Five Eyes governments & corporate media Cold War II propaganda slop: False Witnesses and Sinister Plots: Exposing the CIA Connection in the ‘Chinese Police Station’ Narrative
  What is the Chinese state going to do to you from the other side of the world, other than feed you targeted ads? Attack you with Havana Syndrome or turn you into a Manchurian Candidate via 5G? Why would the Chinese state be the least bit interested in you?
  Does no one remember how ridiculous the red scares and the first cold war hysteria looked in the rear view mirror? Because the new hysteria looks just as ridiculous to me now. Same cartoonish propaganda, same credulous acceptance of it.
  
  Do you have a source that is a little more reliable?

- I read through the first link you provided, it doesn't align with your claim "TikTok OBJECTIVELY collects far lesser data than Big Tech apps and services."
  We go section by section
  TikTok is worst here, collection all possible voice, face, environment data
  Again TikTok infer as much information as possible, worst among all listed.
  The later couple section did not mention tiktok, so I cannot compare it.
  Finally
  TikTok ranked number 3 in among all the social media, above clubhouse and twitter, just below facebook and instagram.
- Whos tankies ?

Tankies failing to comprehend the fundamental difference between an actor who tries to make money off you and an actor trying to manufacture dissent and influence the public narrative
- Yeah because Facebook totally doesn't do that.
  
  Point taken, though it’s still an American company they could crack down upon if they prove too dangerous too.
  To be clear: I don’t want to get spied upon by anyone and I don’t use most of the American services for that reason. But obviously domestic bad actors are better than bad actors controlled by a foreign and hostile government
- Libs failing to actually read Manufacturing Consent.
- trying to manufacture dissent and influence the public narrative
  That shit is all over American social media too buddy. If that's the issue it should all be banned.
  
  I’m game
  The us government probably not tho
- Read the other comments, I don’t want to repeat myself for every idiot jumping on the dogpile. Why does every single China fan assume I love the United States and have a blind eye towards their bullshit? I’m not an American.