“The key issue is, when considering government devices, to consider the type of data that TikTok would be able to gather about government officials on those devices,” said Aynne Kokas, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and author of Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty.

Tik Tok. Huawei. Tencent. Giant Chinese companies have become controversial players in the United States as we try to determine their motives and whether they are just another arm of the Chinese government as they vacuum up incredible amounts of data on American citizens. Data which we willingly provide as we ignore terms of service so we can post another picture or video or interact with our friends. And given the lax regulation of social media companies in America, allowing them to sell our information as a key part of their revenue stream, our data flows like a faucet to China at a moment in time when they are severely restricting the information coming back to us. In her book, “Trafficking Data”, author Aynne Kokas explains how, in her view, China is winning the battle for digital sovereignty as it more broadly defines information that is important to its national security. Beijing is collecting data on people nearly everywhere. Their platforms track people’s preferences and whereabouts, while also giving the Chinese government control over a powerful tool for shaping people’s worldview.

Believe it or not, I knew about Jimmy Carter when he was still “Jimmy Who?” (That’s Who, not Hoo!) Even his own mother, the colorful “Miss Lillian,” exclaimed when he told her that he was running for president, “President of what?” I first saw him in person, when he was Georgia’s governor, attending a 1973 Democratic National Committee meeting in my hometown of Louisville. As a high-school senior, already completely obsessed with American politics, I answered the call of my civics teacher to serve as a page at the DNC gathering.

In the last seven days, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – best known by its initials, FDIC – took over two banks a country apart after customers ran to get their money out in fear of their imminent closure. The federal takeover has fueled fear among some that the failures are precursors to something akin to the Great Recession, when 450 banks failed between 2008 and 2012. To find out what happened, why and what’s next, UVA Today turned to David C. Smith, the Virginia Bankers Association Professor of Commerce at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, and Robert F. Bruner, dean emeritus of UVA’s Darden School of Business and a senior fellow at the Miller Center for Public Affairs.

“There’s a very strong reluctance to be seen as being ‘like China’ by banning things and censoring voices,” said Aynne Kokas, director of the University of Virginia’s East Asia Center and author of the book Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty. The United States wouldn’t be the first country to ban TikTok—India banned it, along with dozens of other Chinese-owned apps following military clashes on its border with China, nearly three years ago. But that was also before TikTok had a billion users, including nearly one-third of the U.S. population. “The Chinese apps that were banned at that time were much less powerful than TikTok is right now in the United States,” Kokas said.

Aynne Kokas joins Tommy to talk about the concern over Tik Tok and why government wants to ban it.