If our lawmakers are concerned about protecting digital privacy, then Congress should start by investigating American federal agencies. WhatsApp is not banned on government devices, but TikTok should be? Meanwhile, Meta itself used a VPN to spy on users’ smartphones for market research in exchange for bribes. Meta’s (Facebook’s) subsidiary WhatsApp was reportedly used by the Saudi government to hack journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s phone before he was abducted and murdered. One focus on “potential gang members” targeted Black and Latinx people, including school-aged children. Dataminr, a startup Twitter partner, provided police with data about BLM protests. Major telecom companies like Verizon gave the government access to hundreds of millions of calls and texts. It was only last year that the post-9/11 NSA phone surveillance program was reported to have finally been shut down. The State Department used social media screening to discriminate against the Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities under the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban.” The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have monitored the social media activities of immigrant rights activists for years. Social media has long been a tool used by federal agencies to target individuals and communities designated as “threat.” The dissonance between accusing TikTok of security concerns and working with other companies to invade people’s privacy rings loudly in our ears. An FBI official was so frustrated with the extensive social media surveillance that he told The Intercept, “Man, I don’t even know what’s legal anymore.” For example, activist Mike Avery was arrested after posting about protests on Facebook, and his charges were dropped without explanation a few weeks later. In 2020, the FBI used social media to monitor racial justice protesters who were targeted for arrests. The campaign against TikTok is a fear-mongering tactic to wage war on China. If Congress cares about our digital privacy as some members are claiming, it should first begin by investigating the surveillance policies of its own U.S. Ten years ago, Edward Snowden told the whole world the truth about the U.S. Originally published in the People’s World on April 3, 2023 Earl Carter, R-Ga., questions TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew during a Congressional hearing on the platform’s consumer privacy and data security practices, March 23, 2023.
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