A Strange Way of Doing Business

When Donald Trump issued his executive order blocking ac-cess to TikTok and WeChat unless a “very American” company-owned them, he more than raised the stakes in the US-China trade war; he signaled that as far as he’s concerned, only American companies are fit to run worldwide computer platforms.

- JAMES S. KALLMAN

Without producing any evidence, he claimed that the app steals data from users’ devices and forwards it to China. Highly unlikely as the data for US users is stored on servers in the country, with back-up in Singapore. Still, then the US president and the truth have proven on many occasions to be no more than nodding acquaintances. Moreover, we’re talking about social media apps, and only the most naïve believe that data security and social media can exist in harmony, for, after all, you give Facebook and Google permission to use whatever personal data they can glean.