Some politicians in Germany consider the app “a danger to our democracy,” says Roderich Kiesewetter, vice chairman of the Bundestag’s intelligence control committee and member of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), because it is an “important instrument” in China and Russia’s hybrid warfare.
Jens Zimmerman, a member of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, said that the government should consider at least banning the app on federal devices. This is the case for the EU institutions, for instance.
I have mixed feelings about this.
We as the west point to Russia and China frequently, lamenting the closed-off nature of their Internet.
Now we are publicly pushing towards further fragmentation of the Internet.
I find it hard to see major differences between blocking TikTok here and China blocking Facebook over there. I assume, the process here is a little more publicly discussed whereas in Russia or China, things are quietly blocked by government agencies, but I might even be wrong about that.
Now that the internet (and particularly social media) has become weaponized as a very cost-effective tool for cyber-warfare, it’s basically inevitable that the fragmentation will continue to happen.
It’s a bit uncomfortable because it goes against the idealism of the early internet which I still cling to, but I just don’t see any way that the current situation is sustainable.