For a brief moment in a five-hour House hearing on Thursday, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew let his frustration show. Asked if TikTok was prepared to split off from its Chinese parent company if ordered to do so by the U.S. government, to safeguard Americans’ online data, Chew went on offense.
TikTok hearing obscures wider issue of Americans’ online privacy

“I don’t think ownership is the issue here. With a lot of respect: American social companies don’t have a great record with privacy and data security. I mean, look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica,” Chew said, referring to the 2018 scandal in which Facebook users’ data was found to have been secretly harvested years earlier by a British political consulting firm.
He’s not wrong. At a hearing in which TikTok was often portrayed as a singular, untenable threat to Americans’ online privacy, it would have been easy to forget that the country’s online privacy problems run far deeper than any single app. And the people most responsible for failing to safeguard Americans’ data, arguably, are American lawmakers.
The bipartisan uproar over TikTok’s Chinese ownership stems from the concern that China’s laws could allow its authoritarian government to demand or clandestinely gain access to sensitive user data, or tweak its algorithms to distort the information its young users see. The concerns are genuine. And yet the United States has failed to bequeath Americans most of the rights it now accuses TikTok of threatening.
While the European Union has far-reaching privacy laws, Congress has not agreed on national privacy legislation, leaving Americans’ online data rights up to a patchwork of state and federal laws. In the meantime, reams of data on Americans’ shopping habits, browsing history and real-time location, collected by websites and mobile apps, is bought and sold on the open market in a multi-hundred-billion-dollar industry. If the Chinese Communist Party wanted that data, it could get huge volumes of it without ever tapping TikTok. (In fact, TikTok says it has stopped tracking U.S. users’ precise location, putting it ahead of many American apps on at least one important privacy front.)
That point was not entirely lost on the members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which convened Thursday’s hearing. Last year, their committee became the first to advance a comprehensive data privacy bill, hashing out a hard-won compromise. But it stalled amid qualms from House and Senate leaders.
Likewise, worries about TikTok’s addictive algorithms, its effects on teens’ mental health, and its hosting of propaganda and extreme content are common to its American rivals, including Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram. Congress has not meaningfully addressed those, either.
And if Chinese ownership is the issue, TikTok has plenty of company there, as well: A glance at Apple’s iOS App Store rankings earlier this week showed that four of the top five apps were Chinese-owned: TikTok, its ByteDance sibling CapCut, and the online shopping apps Shein and Temu.
The enthusiasm for cracking down on TikTok in particular is understandable. It’s huge, it’s fast-growing, and railing against it allows lawmakers to position themselves simultaneously as champions of American children and tough on China. Banning it would seem to offer a quick fix to the problems lawmakers spent five hours on Thursday lamenting.
And yet, without an overhaul of online privacy laws, it ignores that those problems exist on all the other apps that haven’t been banned.
“In most ways, they’re like most of the Big Tech companies,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said of TikTok after the hearing. “They can use Americans’ data any way they want.” She and several other committee members said they’d prefer to address TikTok as part a broader privacy bill, rather than a one-off ban.
But the compromises required to pass big legislation can be politically costly, while railing against TikTok costs nothing. If Chew can take any consolation from Thursday’s hearing, it’s that congressional browbeating of tech companies are far more common than congressional action against them.
For an example, he has only to look at the one he raised in that moment of frustration: For all the hearings, all the grilling of Mark Zuckerberg over Cambridge Analytica, Russian election interference and more, Facebook is still here — and now Congress has moved on to a new scapegoat.
Active afternoon for Sierra thunderstorms

WILL BE IN THE 50S THIS EVENING AROUND TAHOE. AND THERE’S A FLASH FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS EVENING BECAUSE THESE THUNDERSTORMS WILL CONTAIN HEAVY RAIN. AND WHEN THAT HAPPENS, THE WATER DOESN’T HAVE A WHOLE LOT OF PLACES TO GO BECAUSE THE SOILS ARE SATURATED. THOSE RUNOFF FROM THESE STORMS COULD GO INTO THOSE CREEKS AND RIVERS THAT ARE ALREADY VERY FILLED WITH THOSE SNOWMELT. AND THESE STORMS ARE GOING TO BE SLOW MOVING, WHICH IS WHY THEY HAVE THE CAPABILITY OF PRODUCING THAT HEAVY RAIN. STILL HAVE THAT REALLY GOOD ONSHORE BREEZE. AND FAIRFIELD, 24 MILES AN HOUR, OCCASIONAL GUSTS HIGHER THAN THAT. THAT’S GOING TO KEEP TEMPERATURES COOLER THAN AVERAGE. WE’LL STILL ENJOY MOSTLY SUNNY SKIES TODAY IN THE VALLEY, UPPER 70S TO NEAR 80 COULD EVEN SEE AN ISOLATED STORM TRYING TO WANDER ITS WAY DOWN THE WEST SLOPE IN THE FOOTHILLS. DON’T THINK IT’LL MAKE IT TO THE HIGHWAY 49 CORRIDOR, BUT YOU’LL SEE SOME CLOUDS IN THE FOOTHILLS LATER TODAY AN
Northern California forecast: Active Tuesday afternoon ahead for Sierra thunderstorms
An area of low pressure nearby will help thunderstorms develop Tuesday afternoon in the Sierra.These thunderstorms may move slowly, allowing for heavy rain to fall in some areas and bring the potential for flash flooding.”Flash flood watch is in effect through this evening because these thunderstorms will contain heavy rain, and when that happens, the water doesn’t have a whole lot of places to go because the soils are saturated,” said meteorologist Eileen Javora. Most of the activity will be above 5,000 feet in elevation, but some of the storms may drift westward down the west slope of the Sierra — so there is a slight chance some of the Foothills will hear rumbles of thunder or see a bit of rain.”Don’t think it’ll make it to the Highway 49 corridor, but you’ll see clouds in the Foothills later today,” Javora said.The Valley, meanwhile, will have mostly sunny skies with high temperatures in the upper 70s to near 80 degrees.Download our app for the latestHere is where you can download our app for the latest weather alerts.Track interactive, Doppler radar(App users, click here to see our interactive radar.)Real-time traffic map(App users, click here to see our real-time traffic map.)Follow our KCRA weather team on social mediaChief meteorologist Mark Finan on Facebook and TwitterMeteorologist Tamara Berg on Facebook and TwitterMeteorologist Eileen Javora on FacebookMeteorologist Dirk Verdoorn on FacebookMeteorologist/climate reporter Heather Waldman on Facebook and TwitterWatch our forecasts on TV or onlineHere’s where to find our latest video forecast. You can also watch a livestream of our latest newscast here. The banner on our website turns red when we’re live.We’re also streaming on the Very Local app for Roku, Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV.
An area of low pressure nearby will help thunderstorms develop Tuesday afternoon in the Sierra.
These thunderstorms may move slowly, allowing for heavy rain to fall in some areas and bring the potential for flash flooding.
“Flash flood watch is in effect through this evening because these thunderstorms will contain heavy rain, and when that happens, the water doesn’t have a whole lot of places to go because the soils are saturated,” said meteorologist Eileen Javora.
Most of the activity will be above 5,000 feet in elevation, but some of the storms may drift westward down the west slope of the Sierra — so there is a slight chance some of the Foothills will hear rumbles of thunder or see a bit of rain.
“Don’t think it’ll make it to the Highway 49 corridor, but you’ll see clouds in the Foothills later today,” Javora said.
The Valley, meanwhile, will have mostly sunny skies with high temperatures in the upper 70s to near 80 degrees.
Download our app for the latest
Here is where you can download our app for the latest weather alerts.
Track interactive, Doppler radar
(App users, click here to see our interactive radar.)
Real-time traffic map
(App users, click here to see our real-time traffic map.)
Follow our KCRA weather team on social media
Watch our forecasts on TV or online
Here’s where to find our latest video forecast. You can also watch a livestream of our latest newscast here. The banner on our website turns red when we’re live.
We’re also streaming on the Very Local app for Roku, Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV.
India must be prepared for highly sophisticated, well-funded toolkits seeking regime change

An article on 2020 US presidential elections, Death by a thousand cuts: How Trump was robbed, details how Donald Trump was made to lose not by “in the face” criminality-like outright hacking of voting machines, but what can be better described as “death by thousand cuts”. None of these acts on its own amounted to prima facie wrongdoing, but in reality each is a scam that maintained a veneer of respectability.
The article talks about how they changed election laws just before the polls in such a way where previously illegal practices were made legal (mail in ballots and standards of verification), role of Big Tech that hid anything about Joe Biden and his family corruption, particularly his son Hunter Biden laptop explosive revelations, $400 million donation by Mark Zuckerberg that created organisations that state governments hired to run the election in swing states across the nation, among others.
The Zuckerberg-funded activist organisations which were supposed to be non-partisan focused their resources on multiple ways to benefit Biden and impede Trump in carefully selected counties with slim electoral vote margins. To top it all, Big Tech banned any criticism of the election. The article summarises the US 2020 election as, “in combination, an election where western deep state used extraordinarily and deceitful measures as a new form of institutional gerrymandering particularly in few swing states to change the outcome of the election”.
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While the situation in Bharat is not exactly the same as in the United States, the end goal of subversion of the election process to institute regime change in 2024 has actually started happening in full swing by the breaking India forces using various methods. The detailed micro and macro planning by well-funded experts cannot be missed by anyone with a discerning eye. Word is that there are about 220 to 240 Lok Sabha seats identified across the country where there is tacit agreement among Opposition parties to field only one strong candidate with a sprinkling of weak candidates from the rest of the Opposition parties. These locations must have been carefully selected with thin margins to engineer an outcome. Just as the article on US elections said, there is nothing wrong on the surface but the voter as well as competition (BJP) is deceived that it is a multi-party candidate election whereas in truth it is not.
Just as in the US where supposedly non-partisan organisations created using a very large donation by Zuckerberg manipulated elections in carefully selected areas, India has its own set of NGOs, literally thousands funded by foreign entities. Adding to this, as documented in works like Snakes in the Ganga, there are many entities ostensibly created as companies providing services in the remote areas to circumvent Foreign Contribution Regulation Act laws. On the surface they are providing services but their reach is being used to propagate subtle messages to affect election outcomes. Their extensive reach to the last-mile voter can have deadly consequences for holding a free and fair election.
In recently-held elections in Karnataka, third party campaigning is believed to have been done by several NGOs in the remote areas more than a year before the election, saying that the ruling BJP is a “40 percent cut” party. The problem is these subtle campaigns are done in the name of NGOs established for public good or in the name of providing service. Worse, in the case of Karnataka it did not give a full picture of corruption in the state where the then Opposition party itself was led by someone accused of amassing thousands of crores of rupees in corruption.
Free and fair elections in India are challenged by another phenomenon called ‘freebies’. The recent Karnataka elections is again a case in point (along with other states like Punjab, Delhi) where freebies promised are believed to have played a large role in election outcome. This will be one of the strategies that could be used in 2024 as well with carefully planned messages propagated through media, NGOs, dubious service organisations and third-party campaigning.
This freebie culture raises many questions that the country needs to urgently address if democracy is to be preserved. First, these are not funded by politicians or political parties promising them, it is taxpayer funds. Do the parties have agreement from taxpayers to give away their funds? Then, there is even the issue of whether the promises made during elections to get votes can even be met, as is seen in Karnataka where big promises are made before elections and after winning elections, so many ifs and buts have been put in place to receive these freebies, which according to some outlets make almost everyone ineligible. None of the parameters for receiving the freebies was ever announced nor a true picture was given to voters before the elections. If voters were enticed and duped with such false promises, how can that be considered a free and fair election?
On the other hand, if the promises for freebies are kept after winning elections causing a large drain on the state budget, were the voters informed of the consequences of the drain, the lack of funds to do development projects and other state-provided services?
Then there is the question of making secret promises to sections of the voting community. Going back to Karnataka, after the election results were announced Muslim leaders stated that they were promised a Deputy CM and five ministerial positions that must have certainly helped to gain a large number of votes of that community which constitute about 10 percent of the total voter community in the state. When such wild promises are made, should this not be informed to the rest of the voting community before the elections so that an informed decision can be made by them? Yes, the bluff can be called when the next election comes after five years, but the voters get stuck for five years. One suspects this ploy will be used in 2024 as well, with deadly consequences.
Last but not the least, there may be attempts at creating multiple artificially created regional and national disturbances to divide and incite communities using well-devised toolkits.
One really hopes Bharat is prepared for these highly sophisticated and well-funded toolkits seeking to destabilise the country and usher in a regime change. The 2024 election will be a momentous one, in that case.
The writer is a US-based activist who has played a critical role in the introduction of paper trail for India’s Electronic Voting Machines called VVPAT. Views expressed are personal.
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WhatsApp rolls out ‘status archive’ feature for businesses on Android

Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out a new feature called — `status archive` for businesses to beta tester on Android.
According to WABetaInfo, the status updates will be archived on users` devices after 24 hours when the feature is enabled.
In addition, users can also manage their archive preferences and see their archive directly from the menu within the Status tab.
As the archive is always private, only the businesses can see their archived status updates.
Moreover, the report said that this feature could be very useful for businesses as it will allow them to republish a status from their archive and share it with their customers again in order to improve their business.
The status updates will be stored on the device for up to 30 days, and businesses will still be able to create advertisements for Facebook or Instagram or share the status updates until they expire in the archive.
Currently available to beta testers, the report mentioned the new feature will become available to more users in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new feature called — `WhatsApp usernames`, which will let users choose unique usernames for their accounts.
With this feature, users will be able to opt for a unique and memorable username, instead of depending solely on phone numbers to identify contacts.
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