From TikTok and Fortnite to Grindr and Facebook, Aynne Kokas
delivers an urgent look into the technology firms that gather our
data, and how the Chinese government is capitalizing on this data
flow for political gain. On August 6, 2020, the Trump
Administration issued a ban on TikTok in the United States,
requiring that the owner, Beijing-based Bytedance, sell the company
to American investors or shut it down. Legions of TikTokers were
devastated at the possible loss of their beloved platform, and for
what: a political grudge with China? American suitors like Walmart
and Oracle tried to make a deal with Bytedance to keep the platform
operating in the US. But then something curious happened. The
Chinese government refused to let Bytedance sell TikTok on national
security grounds. As it turns out, the pandemic era platform for
dance challenges is a Chinese government asset. As digital
technologies and social media have evolved into organizing forces
for the way in which we conduct our work and social lives, the
business logic that undergirds these digital platforms has become
clear: we are their product. We give these businesses information
about everything-from where we live and work to what we like to do
for entertainment, what we consume, where we travel, what we think
politically, and with whom we are friends and acquaintances. We do
this willingly, but often without a full understanding of how this
information is stored or used, or what happens to it when it
crosses international boundaries. As Aynne Kokas argues, both
corporations and governments "traffic" much of this data without
our consent-and sometimes illegally-for political and financial
gain. In Trafficking Data, Aynne Kokas looks at how technology
firms in the two largest economies in the world, the United States
and China, have exploited government policy (and the lack thereof)
to gather information on citizens, putting US national security at
risk. Kokas argues that US government leadership failures, Silicon
Valley's disruption fetish, and Wall Street's addiction to growth
have fuelled China's technological goldrush. In turn, American
complacency yields an unprecedented opportunity for Chinese firms
to gather data in the United States and quietly send it back to
China, and by extension, to the Chinese government. Drawing on
years of fieldwork in the US and China and a large trove of
corporate and policy documents, Trafficking Data explains how China
is fast becoming the global leader in internet governance and
policy, and thus of the data that defines our public and private
lives.
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