Trudeau government bans TikTok from operating in Canada

To be clear, they're not banning the app, they're banning ByteDance from having offices in Canada

But what's the point? It's more common for a government to force companies to have an office in the country to exercise political or legal control (see for example recent news about Twitter's Brazil office). Why banning them from having one?

What is the strategy here? Why does banning ByteDance from having offices in Canada do anything?

Isn't it all rather self-defeating, then?

ByteDance will keep no data in Canada, will not employ any Canadians, will not report any information to Canadian authorities, and will have no reason to comply with Canadian warrants or court orders. (Or even judgments.) At the same time, all Canadians can continue to use the app.

On balance, this seems bad for Canada and great for ByteDance.

Could it be the start of a series of legislation to make it impossible to operate the app which would be more palatable to the public than a ban?

1: Ban presence in the country

2: Add data provision requirements that personal information be stored in the country.

3: TikTok can’t meet requirements? Well that’s on them, guess they can’t operate here.

Can .ca App Store still offer the app legally if no biz entity operating in Canada? If no, then it's the same as ban the app

> On balance, this seems bad for Canada and great for ByteDance.

It's hard to balance anything until they explain why they did it. So far they claim they aren't at liberty to share but claim it was bad enough to make a very unprecedented move like this.

> What is the strategy here

1. Show the current government is doing something after the CSE said the Canadian government has been breached by China's MSS [0]

2. A response to China for breaching Canada's systems.

3. A way to get a quick win to make bipartisan China hawks across the border in the US happy.

[0] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cse-cyber-threats-china-1.7...

It goes both ways.

... and Bytedance will not have any recourse if Canada bans the app.

Most app developers don't have legal entities in all the countries their app is distributed. Apple is the merchant of record for apps sold and distributed through its app store.

"We came to the conclusion that these activities that were conducted in Canada by TikTok and their offices would be injurious to national security,"

Really not saying anything, but that's the line they are going with.

What if ByteDance operating outside of Canada stores the data in ca-central-1?

The only reason I think they would do this is because of espionage, so you want to remove the offices but keep the app. But there is no proof provided within the article.

Presumably the only espionage asset ByteDance has is the data it keeps on Canadian users. (Which probably includes information on arctic military installations, etc.)

TikTok is still going to collect that data, and it will be kept in China, far beyond Canada's reach. To remove concern over the data, I reckon you'd go about it backwards: Get rid of the app, which is up to no good. Keep the offices, so that they can be spied on or forced into transparency via the courts.

As far as I can find, Bytedance is one of only three companies ordered to shutter their Canadian operations. The other two are both involved in the drone detection space.

This makes the most sense if Canada expects (or has) Canadian troops secretly deployed somewhere. And that is one sobering thought.

ByteDance can't sell advertising in Canada. They can't make money off of Canadian customers, that has to hurt, although it is small potatoes compared to being banned in California, let alone the whole of the USA.

Speaks volumes about perceived power balance between governments and corporations. You'd think that forcing a foreign company to operate through a national subsidiary would be beneficial to the government in terms of intelligence/counterintelligence, but apparently they worry it would be more beneficial to the company and/or its home country.

Intelligence agencies aren't known for their history of providing proof to the public. This review has been in process for over a year though.

That means that users can’t be advertised to?

What do they think is happening inside TikTok offices? It's not like they're embassies filled with spies.

It means Canadian companies can't buy ads from ByteDance. Canadian content creators can't receive money from ByteDance. That is not a win for ByteDance, who I assume wants (a) content from Canadian tiktokers and (b) wants ad money from Canadian companies.

> ByteDance can't sell advertising in Canada.

I'm not sure I follow (maybe there's other details you know about that aren't in the article, or I missed it). I don't think there's anything preventing a Canadian company from paying a foreign company for ads? In theory I'd have to self-assess PST maybe but I order stuff (both physical and digital) from foreign companies with no Canadian presence on a pretty regular basis.

Why couldn't it be?

Canada has an extremely generous, massively exploited foreign worker program (it is actually one of the reasons this government is profoundly unpopular). ByteDance, like every other company, can unilaterally declare that they need to bring in an entirely foreign staff and get it rubber stamped. Given the company's alleged closeness with the party, using it as an easy vehicle to drop loads of intelligence workers of various sorts in Canada would be logical. Similarly China has a thing with running intimidation tactics against Chinese ex-pats living in Western countries.

It's not impossible, but you'd think they come up with a better front company than bytedance, of all companies. It's like China accusing that McDonalds is a spy front.

Perhaps, but China really doesn't have a lot of companies with offices in the West. When China tries to buy Western countries they are often blocked for the same national security reasons, as has happened several times in Canada.

A nondescript consumer appliance or clothing "sales office" is infinitely better than bytedance, a company that has received significant flak in the media. The Biden administration's policy of "small yard, high fence" means that unless you're trying to import chips, AI tech, drones, or battery tech, you're probably fine. Nobody is going to blink an eye at some Chinese company trying to sell rice cookers.