The US Is Changing Its Approach to the Tech Ecosystem

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TikTok is exceptional because it's doing things that the Chinese economy shouldn't. It has broken the global hierarchy of creative leadership, which is generally a color line. I think you can leave the accusations against TikTok alongside accusations of copy theft in China as the place where copyright goes to die. There's not a button that Grandpa Joe can push that says stop neoliberalism on it. This trend towards a more fragmented national internet has been going for a while and we continue into that direction.

Paris Marx is joined by Shoshana Wodinsky to discuss the unconvincing arguments being made for a TikTok ban in the United States, then by Daniel Greene to explore how the turn against Chinese technology signals a shift in US policy on the internet and technology.

Shoshana Wodinsky is a freelance reporter, previously at Marketwatch and Gizmodo. She writes the Tubes newsletter. Daniel Greene is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies and the author of The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope. Follow Shoshana on Twitter at @swodinsky and Daniel at @Greene_DM.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Paris wrote about the effort to ban TikTok and why it shows the US desire to protect its technological dominance.
Shoshana broke down the Congressional hearing with TikTok’s CEO in her newsletter and explained how data brokers get data from many social media apps.
A priest was outed through his Grindr data, which was part of a campaign by Catholic conservatives to identify priests using gay dating apps.
The Strava fitness app gave away the location of secret US military bases when soldiers used the app on their runs.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have been buying US phone data.
Meta paid a firm linked to the Republican Party to smear TikTok.
In Foreign Affairs, Dan Wang explained how China has developed its tech industry with insights gained through the manufacturing process.
After TikTok, there’s a campaign to get Shein in the crosshairs of lawmakers.
Adam Tooze wrote for Foreign Policy about why the US shouldn’t feel it can dictate the path of China’s development.