I think it's reasonable for the government to ban TikTok on their phones. I don't think it's reasonable to make a blanket ban per state or ban its use on College wifi networks with the only justification being potential national security.

I am not sure why you believe the kind of security violation is shoehorning in an unnecessary concern. Technology and software should only be banned at a nation level when it is a threat to national security.

TikTok is a something people can uninstall at any time and people voluntarily choose to install. If you can't see the difference between someone sharing their interest in Harry Potter and the DMV selling your information, without your knowledge or consent, to predatory companies, then I don't think I can explain explain my perspective properly. I did not give the DMV height and weight (listed on the driver's license), my car accident history or insurance information or employment information to sell, they didn't ask before they did. When I travel to a different country, I did not consent to having my face scan taken by the TSA for facial recognition purposes. It's "optional" but that's not how it was presented when I travelled.

I am not sure what I am whitewashing, I make it clear that I expect there is evidence of TikTok exfiltrating data illegally. There is very little chance of the US sharing evidence publicly because that kind of accuastion could start retalitory cyberattacks. If that evidence was public, I would support the ban. But there's nothing public, and unlike with Huawei, there's no conditional evidence either. There's no evidence of TikTok being used to influence public opinion, there's nothing actionable that makes it different than any other social media site. The US Goverment not wanting China to have the data of their citizens isn't a national security threat, it's trying to avoid the consequencees of their intentionally bad policies regarding user privacy. Policies they exploit.

I remember that there was an issue with military personnel getting in trouble using fitness and walking tracking apps at secured bases. People started noticing random high density areas in the technically uninhabited places on maps, they turned out to be military bases. In that case the fitness tracking was banned due to national security issues, but obviously it wasn't malicious abuse of user data. It's not data that the fitness tracker obtained indirectly using data brokers, people voluntarily submitted the data.

There are two separate situations. People should avoid using TikTok because there is a question about whether China has unrestricted access to mine it. People should avoid social media because any kind of social media allows companies and governments to mine it. The separate issue is that there is unproven fears that TikTok is spying on users in some way for the benefit of the Chinese government. This is unproven. This kind of spying would be a genuine critical national security risk of the highest degree. The first and second situation aren't equivalent threats.

I recognize that we have different standard regarding what is severe enough to justify a ban. I hope I was able to demonstrate my perspective about why I think the ban is actually harmful with respect to users, because it lets the government avoid addressing the actual issue. It is a form of censorship, because as of now, it's only politically motivated. The ban wasn't because the government cares about user privacy. If the government really wanted to draw a line in the sand, they would start within the government itself.

Edit:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/critics-find-fla...

I don't think most people realize how dangerous it would be to attack section 230 as a way to implement Europe style privacy laws. It's literally yet another attack on privacy. It seems like Biden is a fan of the old EARN IT bill. It will never pass in the US, but still makes me nervous.