Comment by WesleyJohnson
Comment by WesleyJohnson a day ago
I don't have a list of factors or research in front of me, so let me just state that upfront.
It's widely understood that Meta, X, and plenty of other companies are collecting, and selling massive amounts of data. Meta builds profiles on people that have never even used Facebook, simply by monitoring their activity across the web through Ads, Embeds and Sign-Up w/ Facebook widgets, etc. This data, if I recall, has been sold many times over, and likely stolen, many times over, in data breaches - both disclosed and undisclosed. Which almost assures that China has it already.
Where is the outrage there? The laws, and fines, there? Why not ban that kind of pervasive data collection and digital finger printing, regardless of where it originates, to avoid the potential misuse of that data?
Obviously a company, like ByteDance, running businesses and Apps inside the US, while also being legally bound to helping the CCP - is cause for concern. But clearly we have our concerns right at our front door - and - nothing? Either or government believes access to this kind of data to be a threat, or they don't.
I know that's a gross over simplification, probably misses some key points, and probably falls under the dreaded "whataboutisms"... but it just seems like, its okay of US companies do it, as long as they give that data to OUR government, and losing that data is a just cost of doing business.
I'll take my tinfoil hat off now. :P
This isn't a privacy or data collection matter. What Meta, X or any other company that is not de facto controlled by the CCP does or doesn't do has no bearing on this particular case.