By Toni Ervianto *)
Stramed, The United States President Donald Trump has ordered to ban the download video and messages on Tiktok and WeChat due to both of social media app can bring national security problems in US. Trump does not agree of Oracle will buy Tiktok from Bytedence.
Tiktok is video sharing app on social media and they have at least 100 million user’s in US. WeChat is social media app, messaging and electronic payment. WeChat has readied in US since 2011 and they have one million user’s in US.
The US government has said that Tiktok and WeChat can bother national security because those both social media app can send American data to the Chinese government, meanwhile Chinese government has denied the US allegations and urged to the US to stop their “bullying behavior”. Same with the Chinese government statement, Tencent and Bytedence which having Tiktok and WeChat have also denied the US government allegations related to bring national security problems.
On the perspective of writer, basically the US government reason to deny and to ban Tiktok and WeChat is a true political and security decisions, because both of social media app have belonging with Chinese, the most and prioritized adversary which must be alerted by them.
On the strategic intelligence paradigm, collecting data from social media app is one of tools which be used by several intelligence institution. The results of collecting data from social media apps, we can take some of strategic and an urgent information such as people’s way of life, people’s next demand, people’s habit people’s discourse on several issues from general issue to strategic issues related to government, military, bureaucracy, house of representative and so on.
I think Donald Trump’s decision to ban Tiktok and WeChat is reflected deepening shadow conflict between two big countries in the world and it shows how both US and Chinese are trying to cancel or to challenge their movement to be single hegemony power.
*) The writer is an international issues observer. He had earned his master at the University of Indonesia (UI)
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