In December last year, TikTok and its parent company ByteDance admitted that ByteDance employees had inappropriately accessed the IP addresses of American users, including journalists writing critical stories about the company.
The Justice Department is investigating whether that amounted to improper surveillance of Americans.
China’s data security laws also state that it can demand data from its corporations, said Assoc Prof Chong.
“Unless ByteDance and TikTok have some legal carve-out in the PRC, which is unlikely, they remain subject to those laws as well as those of any jurisdiction in which they operate,” he told CNA.
“Left unresolved, this point is likely to be a major obstacle to the resolution of differences TikTok has with the US government.”
Washington also has concerns about disinformation, propaganda and child safety on social media platforms, said Assoc Prof Chong, noting TikTok's claims of enhancing content moderation.
For its part, China has also removed access to the Twitter platform and ejected Google services and Facebook from its borders.
What's happening with TikTok has some precedent and is “just the current round of contention over technology”, said Assoc Prof Chong.
“In some respects, this tit-for-tat behaviour is common to contested relationships.”
Dr Lim Tai Wei, an adjunct senior research fellow with NUS’ East Asian Institute, said the spectre of a TikTok ban has been around since Donald Trump was US president.
“It will add on to the coterie of issues that are part of the decoupling, Cold War-like relations between the two superpowers,” he said.
A TikTok ban will likely further advance the tech decoupling between the two countries, and could move the competition from semiconductor chips to the digital realm, Dr Lim added.
Amid the decoupling, any move to ban TikTok also sends a signal of “you are either with China or the US”, said Asst Prof Ho.
Dr Chen said the US has accepted "asymmetrical" use of Chinese tech companies for many years now.
The present-day frostiness between US and China is what is facilitating the push for a TikTok ban, he added.
“If the relationship is friendly, beneficial to both sides like what it was before, I do not think this kind of thing would happen."
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiY2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vd29ybGQvdXMtYmFuLXRpa3Rvay1jaGluYS1yZWxhdGlvbnMtYmlsYXRlcmFsLXRpZXMtYW5hbHlzaXMtMzM3MTY5MdIBAA?oc=5
2023-03-24 11:40:23Z
1845346457
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar