Banning foreign-owned companies isn’t unprecedented in the US, TikTok is just one of the latest

The whole TikTok-banning story has been interesting to me. I understand that there is little faith in dominant foreign-owned orgs that either sit on our networks or in our social circles.

For me, because it’s in my face often in my daily work, I am reminded of Merck. The US cleaved off the US branch of Merck during WWI, leaving us with 100 years of a US Merck and a German Merck.

More recently, the US government has placed restrictions on Huawei and Kaspersky.

How will this TikTok story progress?

Having lost its fight in Congress, TikTok faces a tough battle in US courts and with China’s own export controls. Source: TikTok has a tricky legal case to make against the ban law – The Verge

The sad thing is, at the heart of this is Trust. China’s behaviors, which I will point out are of a different sort than Russia or Korea, have generated a high level of distrust across the world.

Indeed, there are other countries with various bans on TikTok.

And it doesn’t help China itself bans a slew of foreign-owned internet services.

Banning TikTok, tho, will be interesting. This isn’t some hidden tech, but a leading social network platform in the hands of millions.

I am expecting the eventual outcome to be a banning on government devices, the formation of a US-owned subsidiary keeping US data in the US (à la Merck), and a string of retaliations by China.

What do you think?

[BTW, is DJI next in line?]

Thoughts?