If I were a tech company who's service was about to be made illegal, I would certainly tell my users about it before I was shutdown. It would be pretty rude to suddenly cease function on them without letting them know why, and I think most users would like to know in advance of the service shutting down.
This could be interpreted as CCP manipulation, but what else did you expect them to do?
I'll relent and admit that some of the people might knowingly have acted in the interest of the CCP, because you surely cannot be saying that it is not in the CCP's interest to avoid TikTok's divestment.
You are displaying a level of paranoia about the Chinese government that is clearly unhealthy. When US apps are facing legislation abroad that would ban them or regulate them
in unfavorable ways they also notify their users. Take a step back and ask yourselves what the multinational company TikTok would do when facing a ban in one of its most profitable markets. Probably rally their users to oppose it.
The Chinese government
and the US government exert their influence over companies in the same way -- regulation, backdoor conversations asking them to kill/mute stories, and NSL type requests. There's not some
government propagandist sitting at a switchboard. In fact it's the "West" that goes above and beyond with an entire technical apparatus to real-time mass censor social media to "protect democracy." If you don't consider every US company to be a direct arm of the US government but do for China then it's because your feeling about China than your feelings about social media manipulation.
It is in China's interest to avoid divestment because TikTok is a successful company making China money. And now it's in their interest to avoid divestment to not get bullied by the US gov't. If TikTok had the power you and others in this thread ascribe to them they would be more successful at swaying public opinion.
>If you don't consider every US company to be a direct arm of the US government but do for China then it's because your feeling about China than your feelings about social media manipulation.
I do. I live in the EU, and our laws arguably don't allow sharing data with US companies for that exact reason (Schrems II judgement)
It doesn't matter why TikTok does anything. They have shown they can influence their users en masse, and they're legally obligated to do it if the Chinese authorities demand it.
Show me another company that convinced thousands of young teens to call their representatives, about anything. [0] If your rebuttal of that is that it’s a good thing kids called their representatives, my response would be, TikTok has proven to have enough influence to get kids to call congress. Think about that for a second. A singular entity controlled by China influences thousands of children to pass along the concerns of TIKTOK THE COMPANY.
It will be "watching funny dance videos", because that is what they were calling about this time, because it's what they care about.
You might believe that the next thing will be, "let China take over the Senkaku islands", but if so, you have not been around children in several decades.
