alt Hacker NewsThis would have been a great opportunity to regulate and prohibit massive data collection on mobile phones, by writing a law that requires the platforms (iOS,android) to architect differently and police this aggressively. Takes care of a lot of the TikTok worry and cleans up ecosystems from location tracking/selling weather apps as well.
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I’d love to see that happen as much as you but it really is irrelevant for this case. The truth is that this case is about which government gets to brainwash the masses. By far and away the greatest threat Tiktok poses to the US is a foreign government having that ability to control public opinion en masse.
None of the litigants proposed that, and neither did the act in question. The court doesn't usually address matters outside the controversy in question, so it's no surprise that they didn't here.
There's no compelling argument or evidence of data collection with TikTok, to my knowledge. Theres more evidence of data collection and aggregation with American platforms than TikTok. Additionally, TikTok is operated independently within the USA and hosted on American servers. I think if there's any opportunity to regulate data collection, TikTok seems to have positioned itself defensively and seems to be distant from being used as an example. The only thing that seems to matter with this ban is that TikTok is mostly owned by a Chinese company.
I'd love to be corrected, but I haven't been provided any evidence or information that suggests this ban was justified at all.