The US will not tolerate any social media without full NSA/CIA ownership.

The trade war and multi-pronged efforts to slow China’s tech sector down in the current bipartisan “America first” protectionistic agenda have made the popular social media video app Tik Tok center of the news. The US argues that owners with residence in non-democratic countries (however this is defined these days?) should not be allowed to own popular apps. The story is similar to bans of leading communication hardware vendors like Huawei, not because of any unproven “potential” security risks, but rather the notion that US companies cannot compete on their own merits if competition isn’t banned… Much Like the former tariffs on European steel that were justified in the same way with “national security” as a false pretense (ref).

Currently, TikTok competing with US business interests, and companies and US politicians try to force the owners to hand TikTok and its intellectual properties over to US companies. If NSA/CIA cannot get complete legal and intelligence control over the TikTok app and data, a ban is most likely.

It’s an upside-down world today when China is relatively open for business allowing US-controlled tech to dominate and do business with fewer restrictions allowed to profit and have US-ownership structures, despite the risks of NSA/CIA knocking on the door of these US-tech companies demanding access to the data and their companies resources for non-disclosed purposes.

The bigger question is what the US will do next. Will Israeli apps (Mossad of course have full access rights to all Israeli corporation’s data, similar to CIA/NSA in the US) be stopped? How about hardware produced in communist countries like Vietnam? Dysfunctional democracies like India, Turkey, etc.? Of course, everything will not be banned and the inconsistencies and slippery slope are obvious problems here.

Which country will be most open for business going forward? US or China?