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[Thread
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇🏻" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten (heller Hautton)" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten (heller Hautton)">] Let& #39;s talk about why the Tik Tok status quo doesn& #39;t make sense for America.
There are 3 issues (2 longstanding problems + 1 more recent issue which has emerged to the forefront): https://twitter.com/rabois/status/1289696133971763200">https://twitter.com/rabois/st...
There are 3 issues (2 longstanding problems + 1 more recent issue which has emerged to the forefront): https://twitter.com/rabois/status/1289696133971763200">https://twitter.com/rabois/st...
(1) Trade reciprocity: Most US content platforms are banned in China, including Facebook, Twitter, Github, Google, Youtube, Reddit, Netflix.
(1) Granting China& #39;s content platforms unfettered access to US market at a time when they& #39;ve banned nearly every US platform is a cognitive dissonance that& #39;s hard to reconcile. Enforcing a reasonable degree of "trade reciprocity" should not seem unreasonable.
(2) Cybersecurity & natnl security: We keep experiencing these in the form of alleged “accidents”, “hacks” or “glitches,” but the bottom line is that under Chinese laws, any organization & individual in China is legally obligated to comply & assist the CN gov with intel requests.
(2) The recent National Security Law also has implications on censorship & content application with extraterritorial applications.
(3) UN defines genocide as an "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." There are serious political implications w formally acknowledging a genocide is taking place but there r bigger implications with sweeping genocide under the rug
(3) Tik Tok& #39;s parent company, ByteDance, has allegedly assisted the CCP w identifying Uighur women of child-bearing age for the purpose of arresting those women & sending to the camps where they underwent forced sterilization. This is genocide & the US should have no part in it.
Option 1- Divestment: Divesting sounds good, but because of Chinese laws, divesting from China is always inherently a two part process in order to be meaningful: a company has to (1) divest from the Chinese parent company AND (2) divest from the CCP& #39;s jurisdictional control.
In other words, even Tik Tok is now owned by Microsoft, it would need to move its engineering *out of China* in order for its platform to be divested from the CCP’s jurisdictional control. Otherwise, it will face similar quandary as Zoom & will be subject to CCP& #39;s intel requests
Option 2- Suspension: Main downside is inconveniencing US Tik Tok users. To be clear, POTUS (regardless of who is Prez) does have exec authority to enact a suspension under the IEEPA-- this is no different than precedent on other sanctions. India did this & the sky didn& #39;t fall.
For additional insights on this, @benthompson has done some fantastic analysis.
https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/1289568113915125761?s=21">https://twitter.com/benthomps... https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/1289568113915125761">https://twitter.com/benthomps...
https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/1289568113915125761?s=21">https://twitter.com/benthomps... https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/1289568113915125761">https://twitter.com/benthomps...
