India’s TikTok Ban Dispels the Myth of the “China Bogeyman”

US tech giants like Mark Zuckerberg have long warned that heavy regulation on data collection for social media platforms like Facebook will strengthen the positions of Chinese companies. This argument resonated with Congress in 2018, as Zuckerberg defended his company amid the Cambridge-Analytica scandal. India’s recent ban on the Chinese app TikTok, however, erodes the arguments pushed by American tech giants. Digital Platforms and Democracy Project Co-Director Dipayan Ghosh breaks down what Zuckerberg and others got wrong in their assumptions about data collection and what the relationship between the U.S. government and companies like Facebook will look like going forward. 

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