Has an enemy foreign nation with a vested interest in the mass-collection of US citizens data and the unfettered ability to manipulate and misinform the American populace, especially the youth…
…also had the means to do so, with absolutely no oversight by the government of those US citizens? No I don’t believe so. China’s influence on the minds of the average American has never been this pervasive, it is indeed unprecedented and a bona fide national security risk.
If you’re suggesting that what the government actually wants is that data for themselves… idk maybe, but not really? TikTok is the 4th largest social media service, the other 3 being American owned already, with much larger user bases, of which most TikTok users probably also use. TikTok doesn’t really have anything that the U.S. market doesn’t already have and in greater quantity. Maybe if TikTok was a company based out of Switzerland, then I might raise an eyebrow. But the fact that it’s Chinese of all things, the national security reason is just already a solid reason to ban TikTok. Whether or not there’s an interest in US government control over that data is little more than a footnote in the conversation.