Australian Opposition Parties Encourage Migration to Forthcoming U.S. Version of TikTok ⇥ skynews.com.au

Oscar Godsell, Sky News:

The opposition’s shadow finance minister James Paterson has since urged the Australian Labor government to follow suit.

Mr Paterson told Sky News if the US was able to create a “safer version” of TikTok, then Australia should liaise with the Trump administration to become part of that solution.

“It would be an unfortunate thing if there was a safe version of TikTok in the United States, but a version of TikTok in Australia which was still controlled by a foreign authoritarian government,” he said.

I am not sure people in Australia are asking for yet more of the country’s media to be under the thumb of Rupert Murdoch. Then again, I also do not think the world needs more social media platforms controlled by the United States, though that is very clearly the wedge the U.S. government is creating: countries can accept the existing version of TikTok, adopt the new U.S.-approved one, or ban them both. The U.S. spinoff does not resolve user privacy problems and it raises new concerns about the goals of its government-friendly ownership and management.