*Yes, TikTok sucks. But the rules for tech giants must be better than "it's only bad if China does it."*

I think countries can indeed be safer by barring antisocial media platforms that accumulate data for adversary countries.

It is true that this also helps dictatorships block the influence of anyone from outside the dictator's power. But dictators already do that, as it suits them, So I don't think this is a valid argument about what a free country should do.

However, it is equally dangerous for a "domestic" company to collect lots of personal data about people, with which to manipulate and control them. And using peer pressure to make almost everyone "consent" is not an excuse. We need to protect American minors, and American adults, from Facebook and Ex-Twitter as well as Lies Social, and to do it in a way that respects freedom of speech.

My proposal is to require recommendation engines to be independent from platforms, using a standard protocol, so that any user can choose to send an edited subset of per viewing history on any platform to any recommendation engine, anonymously. then choose to follow (or not) some or all of the recommendation.