Comment by gpm

Yes! In fact the US court system does a great job of things like that.

https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-111...

I recommend you start reading on Page 33 if you are impatient.

In extremely short. The PRC is an extremely active cyber threat, hacking things all over the US, in large part to gain access do gain access to datasets about U.S. people. Including hacks of the Goverment's Office of Personnel Management, of a credit reporting agency, a health insurance provider.

The PRC has a strategy and laws of using its relationship with Chinese companies, and through them their subsidiaries, to carry out it's intelligence activities.They specifically point to the National Security Law of 2015 and the Cybersecurity law of 2017 which require full co-operation with Chinese authorities and full access to the data.

So one half of their justification is the significant risk of China using TikTok to conduct espionage in the form of gathering a huge dataset on Americans.

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Another half of the risk is, as everyone else here is already saying, their ability to influence Americans.

This is not an entirely theoretical concern as TikTok would like you to believe, the Government reports that “ByteDance and TikTok Global have taken action in response to PRC demands to censor content outside of China”.

And all evidence is that it would happen in the US the second the PRC decided to ask for it.