Shou Zi Chew plays for time, while Electronic Frontier Foundation says TikTok-kill bill is DOA. As the House bill to force ByteDance to divest TikTok gains momentum, the EFF weighs in against it.
In a nutshell, the foundation's argument is: We need privacy protections from all apps-not just TikTok-and the constitution prevents laws limiting speech.
The Chinese government has made clear that it does not want ByteDance to divest TikTok, and most people close to ByteDance insist that the company will not sell.
The immediate question for TikTok is what the Senate now does.
For those who work at TikTok, the situation in Congress has only added to the pressure on them.
As long as ByteDance owns TikTok, I believe ByteDance will use TikTok to support the party.
China's National Intelligence Law granted broad powers to the country's spy agencies and obligates companies to assist with intelligence efforts.
That's why some American lawmakers are concerned that ByteDance could be forced to hand over Americans' private data to the Chinese state.
This is why the EFF strongly supports comprehensive data privacy legislation [but] Congress has consistently failed to enact [any].
China is not unique in requiring companies in the country to provide information: In the United States, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act authorizes the mass collection of communication data.
It has been well-established law for almost 60 years that U.S. people have a First Amendment right to receive foreign propaganda.
The U.S. has deemed restrictions on the free flow of information to be undemocratic [but] if the TikTok bill becomes law, the U.S. will lose much of its moral authority on this vital principle.
While it's true that Congress hasn't passed a 'comprehensive Federal privacy law,' it's also true the Biden administration is orchestrating a remarkable revolution in privacy protections by resurrecting old legal tools.
The industry of data brokers [is] listening because of a little noticed but pivotal legal change in enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has taken action to address shoddy data practices.
So the legal actions undertaken by Biden across the board are restructuring how data brokers operate and how ad markets work.
After the forced sale of Grindr, the US should've passed a privacy law to ban nonconsensual collection of personal data by first party services and ban nonconsensual distribution of personal data by first party services to third parties and from those third parties to other third parties.
The US is at least right about one thing: China would never allow a foreign company to have so much relative influence in the culture of a couple generations worth of people.
I could believe both that somebody has been convinced that TikTok is a national security issue, but I could also see Meta and Google's hands in this: They have an astronomical amount of upside here to a ban.
TikTok is effectively controlled by a hostile power, though.
This Cyber News was published on securityboulevard.com. Publication date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 18:43:07 +0000