"Mistreat" is a bit unnecessarily dramatic. People in the US were fine (possibly even better off) before TikTok, and they'll be just fine if it goes away.
China's level of internet control and censorship does seem to rise to the level of mistreatment (in that they control and shape access to information, in ways that further the interests of state propaganda), but denying Chinese companies (and the Chinese government) market access to American consumers in some spheres seems fine. It's never been a two-way street with China, and I think we should be engaging in a bit of protectionism when it comes to allowing or not allowing Chinese companies to operate here.
If the US government were suppressing particular views or discussion of some topics (as the Chinese government does to their own citizens), then I would be alarmed. But that's not what's happening here; if the TikTok ban goes through, US citizens' free speech rights will not be meaningfully impacted, as there are other platforms that can and will carry the same content.
Banning a foreign company from doing business in your country isn't automatically censorship. There's nuance.
(And beyond all this, I do worry about the Chinese government using TikTok as a platform to influence Western citizens' thought, culture, and politics, for their own purposes. If they're not doing it already, I'd be astonished.)
> If the US government were suppressing particular views or discussion of some topics (as the Chinese government does to their own citizens), then I would be alarmed.
As someone mentioned above, several officials openly admittted the "ban" is related to palestine-related matirials on TikTok's platform, as opposed to some other platforms.
How the mighty have fallen. I remember the Arab Spring and all the excitement about media being in people's hands, safe from censorship... So finally, non-Arab people got the same opportunity too. And now, apparently, there's nuance.
The mask has fallen and the emperor is totally naked. This is a grab on Tiktok with national security justifications. Some gangoon politicians have already expressed interest to buy the thing.
Or, you know, the Arab Spring was actually a monumental failure in the vast majority of cases? And it turned out that yes, nascent technologies can be used by people to coordinate, at least until government fingers are thoroughly grown into the new system. All that optimism was wrong.
How many popular revolutions happened during Arab spring that long term lead to more democratic societies? Saudi Arabia learned to just get government employees hired to moderate twitter, and then had their wealth fund help Musk buy it outright.
China's level of internet control and censorship does seem to rise to the level of mistreatment (in that they control and shape access to information, in ways that further the interests of state propaganda), but denying Chinese companies (and the Chinese government) market access to American consumers in some spheres seems fine. It's never been a two-way street with China, and I think we should be engaging in a bit of protectionism when it comes to allowing or not allowing Chinese companies to operate here.
If the US government were suppressing particular views or discussion of some topics (as the Chinese government does to their own citizens), then I would be alarmed. But that's not what's happening here; if the TikTok ban goes through, US citizens' free speech rights will not be meaningfully impacted, as there are other platforms that can and will carry the same content.
Banning a foreign company from doing business in your country isn't automatically censorship. There's nuance.
(And beyond all this, I do worry about the Chinese government using TikTok as a platform to influence Western citizens' thought, culture, and politics, for their own purposes. If they're not doing it already, I'd be astonished.)