Trudeau government bans TikTok from operating in Canada

Instead of the laser focus on TikTok as a threat, it would be better for the US and Canada to have real data protection laws that would apply equally to TikTok, Meta, Google, Apple, and X. What the EU has done is far from perfect but it bans the worst practices. The Chinese can buy all of the information they want on Americans and Canadians from ad brokers, who will happily sell them everything they need to track individuals' locations.

Perhaps the way to get anti-regulation politicians on board with this is for someone to do what was done to Robert Bork and legally disclose lots of personal info on members of Congress/Parliament, obtained from data brokers and de-anonymized.

It is not about the data. It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that.

Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish.

> It is not about the data. It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that.

Well, this is Canada we are talking about. All of the countries in OP's list are foreign.

As a Canadian, the US already controls Canada in almost every way. We get US media, technology, gas, trade, etc. If the US wanted Canada to do something, they wouldn't have to use subtle techniques to do it, they could just demand it.

I don't think the US tries to control Canada like a vassal. It's an unfair portrayal of their common history. Canada is basically the parts of British interest in North America that that revolutionary war failed to reach or aquire in post war negotiations. Benedict Arnold, following Washingtons plan, was defeated in Quebec after all. The US influences Canada more than Canada influences the US because its population is 10x. If the situation were reversed and Canada had all the northern states of the US their relationship would be the same.