Some politicians in Germany consider the app “a danger to our democracy,” says Roderich Kiesewetter, vice chairman of the Bundestag’s intelligence control committee and member of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), because it is an “important instrument” in China and Russia’s hybrid warfare.
Jens Zimmerman, a member of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, said that the government should consider at least banning the app on federal devices. This is the case for the EU institutions, for instance.
I’m pretty sure that TikTok is already illegal here. There have been several reports that the chinese government has access to the data and that would totally be in violation of GDPR. I’m sure that you can find other violations of existing laws. So if someone wants to ban TikTok, he just has to push the responsible government agencies to do their fucking job.
What’s also very peculiar is that only Chinese employees of Bytedance are permitted access to the service’s underpinnings. They even fly in technicians to Europe and the US to prevent any non-Chinese from seeing how the service functions.
If government access to social media data is a breach of GDRP, then every single social media site is operating illegally in the EU.
The details are much complexer than “government access to social media”, but the same issues are also applying to US social media sites. If you want to know more, google “US EU privacy shield”
The problem with applying existing laws is then you’re under the regime of rule of law, and TikTok could escape by complying with the law like anybody else.
This is a xenophobic witchhunt, though, and that won’t do.
Oh look, a variation of the sinophobia talking point that wumaos like to use so much.
There is nothing xenophobic about reining in the CCCP’s disinformation, data collection and psyops tool.