My problem with that that law, is what is tiktok doing differently then google, facebook, microsoft? They are all collecting data, but people get all high and mighty about a foreign company suddenly collecting. Why not force all of them to stop. Btw, I don't use tiktok, I couldn't care less if its blocked but its hypocritical to point out one company like that
In essence I think you're totally right, that the fundamental problem here is the collection of data, often without the individual's knowledge or explicit agreement. It's pervasive and as you say, everybody does it.
The idea that what, say, Google collect is less injurious to the US than what TikTok does misses the point that what data Google has is capable of leaking out anyway, so all data harvesting is bad and injurious.
But the problem with TikTok isn't just that it harvests data, but where that data is coming from, where it's going, and crucially, who is paying for it. The document at
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12131 is short and simple, and explains part of the problem, which is that TikTok claims the data from US users is kept safe and secure and not shared with Chinese authorities, but that there are reasons to believe this isn't true.
In particular, a driver for blocking the use of TikTok in the US is the number of people in sensitive positions in government and military who use it, so the fact there's evidence (through security researchers) that TikTok's public statements of data security are not mirrored by their private actions on data sharing is rather like Allied governments during WWII allowing German and Japanese contractors to install microphones in government buildings on the promise that they're not going to be switched on.
An additional problem is that the Chinese authorities have an extensive history of aggressive data harvesting against potential or actual economic and political powers who oppose them, so whether happily cooperative or forced into compliance by the authorities, TikTok's harvesting is a very real threat. This not least because while they agreed to ring fence the data, some is stored in Chinese servers in Singapore, where there are no actionable US protections.
The big concern is not actually TikTok or its current owners, but the fact that these entities are directly under the control of the Chinese state.
I'd be rather doubtful that the TikTok ban in the US will or should be upheld by the courts, but it does point up the very thorny subject of why it could be necessary to regulate the IT industry, and if so, where the lines are drawn as to where.
