Some politicians in Germany consider the app “a danger to our democracy,” says Roderich Kiesewetter, vice chairman of the Bundestag’s intelligence control committee and member of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), because it is an “important instrument” in China and Russia’s hybrid warfare.
Jens Zimmerman, a member of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, said that the government should consider at least banning the app on federal devices. This is the case for the EU institutions, for instance.
Banning it on federal devices is a no-brainer. Tiktok, Facebook, Twitter etc all require permissions that should NEVER be given on a device used for government work.
Banning it completely, without even CONSIDERING the banning of the much worse threats mentioned above is asinine and probably based in xenophobia or other demagoguery, though.
If that’s a no brainer, it should also be a no brainer to ban them on company devices.
Sure, but that’s up to the companies, not the government.
Every company I’ve worked for has had very strict standards as to what could be installed on their devices.
I’m pretty sure that TikTok is already illegal here. There have been several reports that the chinese government has access to the data and that would totally be in violation of GDPR. I’m sure that you can find other violations of existing laws. So if someone wants to ban TikTok, he just has to push the responsible government agencies to do their fucking job.
What’s also very peculiar is that only Chinese employees of Bytedance are permitted access to the service’s underpinnings. They even fly in technicians to Europe and the US to prevent any non-Chinese from seeing how the service functions.
If government access to social media data is a breach of GDRP, then every single social media site is operating illegally in the EU.
The details are much complexer than “government access to social media”, but the same issues are also applying to US social media sites. If you want to know more, google “US EU privacy shield”
The problem with applying existing laws is then you’re under the regime of rule of law, and TikTok could escape by complying with the law like anybody else.
This is a xenophobic witchhunt, though, and that won’t do.
Oh look, a variation of the sinophobia talking point that wumaos like to use so much.
There is nothing xenophobic about reining in the CCCP’s disinformation, data collection and psyops tool.
Ban meta first. Jesus fucking christ, this world is a fucking joke. FACEBOOK LITERALLY INFLUENCED ELECTIONS AND WE KNOW ABOUT IT.
I have mixed feelings about this.
We as the west point to Russia and China frequently, lamenting the closed-off nature of their Internet.
Now we are publicly pushing towards further fragmentation of the Internet.
I find it hard to see major differences between blocking TikTok here and China blocking Facebook over there. I assume, the process here is a little more publicly discussed whereas in Russia or China, things are quietly blocked by government agencies, but I might even be wrong about that.
Now that the internet (and particularly social media) has become weaponized as a very cost-effective tool for cyber-warfare, it’s basically inevitable that the fragmentation will continue to happen.
It’s a bit uncomfortable because it goes against the idealism of the early internet which I still cling to, but I just don’t see any way that the current situation is sustainable.
Country that delivers 30% of the weapons israel uses to kill Palestinians bans TikTok right after country that delivers 70% of the weapons bans TikTok
Geez wonder what the relation is here.
Is the Europe slowly waking up to the reality, that they granted propaganda machines and intelligence services targeted and unrestricted assess to their citizens?
They really don’t have any ideas of their own anymore. They pulled political discourse down to US levels and are now an echo chamber for Republican bullshit.
The idea that TikTok is dangerous is popular on both sides (and entirely valid). This is not a Republican talking point.
The thing is, that German conservative politics (I know that SPD is also pro banking tiktok according to the article) has started to take every Republican talking point since Merz took over. Don’t get me wrong I’m no fan of tiktok and don’t use it, but they’ve also taken every other inhumane “idea” the Republicans present. After they started a war on gender inclusive language e.g. the German conservatives (and Nazis) started making it a topic in Germany as well. You can be sure that whatever the Republicans are being loud about, our very own neoliberals will have the same topics a few months later.
You’re right. I’ve noticed this as early as the Bush years, with CDU and CSU closely watching what Republicans were doing and trying to (often rather clumsily) copy it. This has not slowed down. I recall I believe Söder vowing to fight “the woke” last year, which really rubbed me the wrong way. The last thing we need is American culture war nonsense poisoning German politics as well, but the floodgates have already been opened by unscrupulous politicians.
Oh yes I remember Söder saying something along the line. Merkel probably blocked a lot of those talking points during her reign. Although she left a lot of things unattended during her 16 years in power, she was often a voice of reason, especially compared to the Bavarian nut jobs. What we would need at the moment is a lot more social politics, as that is the only thing that’ll stop the fascists. Unfortunately what’s happening is parties like the SPD and Grüne taking more conservative stands and taking along the same lines - Bezahlkarte for example should have been stopped at the first mention of it with a simple hint to our history.
It’s so uncontroversial that tiktok is effectively banned in China - even ignoring spying, Douyin algorithm is significantly less harmful than Tiktok’s.
Tiktok is the ultimate Trojan horse and Douyin is proof of that.