The conspiracy theory motivating the ban on a chinese company owning tik tok:

FBI Director Christopher Wray has also publicly testified about his concerns about the app, including during an appearance last week at a Senate hearing on worldwide threats to U.S. security. In that testimony, Wray told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the Chinese government could use the app to control software on millions of devices, among other concerns.

“We’re not sure that we would see many of the outward signs of it happening if it was happening,” Wray said.

While the FBI only has a havanah syndrome-type vague sense of dis-ease, politicians know exactly what there is to be afraid of: having to listen to the voices of their constituents before doing what they are going to do anyway.

[Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis] says the lobbying campaign that TikTok launched — with push notices using location information to connect users by phone to their member of Congress — proves why the bill is needed.

“You had member offices being deluged with calls, you know, teenagers crying and one threatening suicide and one impersonating one of my colleague’s sons,” he said. “That, to me, demonstrates how the platform could be weaponized in the future.”

Congratulations to Gen Z for overcoming Millennial anxieties. !

Also, I haven’t seen any coverage of it but did they quietly create the GDPR? If this is generally applicable to all apps, not only owned by adversary countriess or whatever, it could be huge:

It also creates a system for users to download their own data and switch to an alternate platform.