For the first time, a genuine Chinese app — not a knockoff of something invented in the United States or Europe — captured the hearts of American teenagers and millennials. Like Oracle, Microsoft would have taken over the storage of all data on Americans, keeping it in the United States. (TikTok currently has a major data server in Virginia, but backs up data in Singapore.) Already, many Americans use encryption apps, like Telegram, that are based outside the United States, so that the United States would have a more difficult time issuing subpoenas for the content. Attorney General William P. Barr has already called for greater scrutiny — and perhaps abolition — of any such app that does not allow the United States a legal “back door.”

Source: New York Times September 21, 2020 00:00 UTC