Trump’s TikTok Ban Is All About Fueling a Cold War With China
Trump’s TikTok ban isn’t about protecting digital security. It’s simply a bid to rile up his base by stoking nationalism and anti-Chinese sentiment.
JS Tan is a writer and activist.
Trump’s TikTok ban isn’t about protecting digital security. It’s simply a bid to rile up his base by stoking nationalism and anti-Chinese sentiment.
The new national security laws that Beijing has imposed on Hong Kong criminalize dissent — and they could make it harder for workers in mainland China to organize, too.
China’s new national security laws are a significant escalation against the protest movement in Hong Kong. Rather than act through Hong Kong officials to carry out its will, Beijing has decided to directly restrict the free speech rights of Hong Kong residents.
Whether in China or the United States, tech companies are teaming up with governments to boost surveillance amid the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a slippery slope that threatens to bring more civil liberties violations and more power for profit-hungry tech companies.
Microsoft just won a massive contract from the Defense Department, showing how nationalism, militarism, and corporate power intermingle in the tech industry. Our response must be to unite tech workers across borders — and reject the jingoism that divides us.
Protesters in Hong Kong are still clogging the streets en masse. Their task: to face down not just the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party but the self-dealing of Hong Kong capitalists.
Tech workers in China and the US recently united in the largest display of tech worker solidarity we’ve ever seen. It’s exactly what we need to prevent a global race to the bottom in tech.
Big tech companies are spending millions to get young people into coding and STEM — not out of altruism, but to create a future supply of cheap labor.
Despite their often-high salaries, tech workers are workers. And like any other kind of worker, to advocate for their interests on the job, they need to get organized.