Instead of myopically fixating on TikTok, the US should pass a real privacy law to regulate data brokers, who offer anyone info on US citizens, including China
from the you're-not-actually-fixing-the- problem dept — We've noted for a while now how the great TikTok moral panic of 2023 is largely a distraction.
Context & Ripple Effects
This piece lands mid-arc in a running Techdirt argument that the TikTok fight treats symptoms while ignoring the plumbing: as the earlier call for a real privacy law over data brokers put it, brokers sell information on US citizens to anyone, Chinese entities included, no app ban required. Around it sit the White House's feedback on a draft bipartisan TikTok bill and the paper's critique of a forced sale undermining TikTok's ability to counter adversarial threats.
The follow-on coverage validates the argument's premise: a year later, the House did pass a narrower bill barring brokers from selling personal data to China and Russia — partial adoption of exactly the fix this column urged. That sequencing makes this article the thesis statement for a debate that Congress then answered with a targeted statute rather than comprehensive privacy law.
First-order effects
- US data brokers remain free to sell information on American citizens to any buyer, including Chinese entities, because the House's later bill only blocks sales to designated foreign adversaries rather than regulating the brokerage market itself.
Second-order effects
- A divest-or-ban outcome for TikTok leaves the broker channel open, so the national-security rationale migrates to whichever platform or data seller fills the gap — pressure shifts from one Chinese-owned app to the entire US data-brokerage industry.
Third-order effects
- If Congress keeps patching per-app or per-adversary rules instead of passing comprehensive privacy law, US policy hardens into a pattern where data protection is defined by who is barred from buying, not by what anyone may sell — leaving allied and domestic buyers outside every restriction.
The trend: US data-privacy policy is drifting from comprehensive regulation toward adversary-by-adversary export controls on personal data, with the data-broker market left largely intact between patches.