Comment by suby
I am in favor of banning TikTok, but not strictly because they harvest data. I am far more concerned about them manipulating people on a large scale, I think TikTok is an effective tool for manipulating public opinion and I have no doubt that they're actively engaged and consciously engaging America in a form of psychological warfare. We are facing the very real threat of a military conflict with China, I do not want the Chinese government in this position of power.
I frankly don't understand why I keep seeing on social media people like yourselves push the idea that it's okay because other companies are also harvesting the data. It is obviously not about the data. It is about China being in a position to manipulate information flow.
The rationalizations and justifications are more a window into people's thought process than they are actual arguments. This person has decided that TikTok isn't that bad, and you are witnessing how they reverse engineer from that view point back to the argument.
That's why arguing in this sense never works. Someone isn't trying to work something out, they've already decided and are trying to explain the decision to you. That's not the same thing as thinking through something.