Digital Footprints on Foreign Soil
Guest: Aynne Kokas
Chances are, by now you have heard about the controversy surrounding TikTok, the popular social media video app. The controversy stems from allegations that TikTok complies with Chinese Communist Party’s request to provide user data for purposes of surveillance and intelligence gathering. And yes, that data is purported to include US user data. But the TikTok controversy highlights a much larger issue – that of US user data exfiltration to external nation states such as China as a security and privacy risk. Are the steps being taken by the Trump administration appropriate or overkill? Is TikTok unique or part of a growing trend? And what are the consequences of data gathering and exfiltration across borders.
We will discuss all this and more with our guest Aynne Kokas, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and a senior faculty fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center for Public Affairs. Kokas’ research broadly examines Sino-US media and technology relations. Her research has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, the Mellon Foundation, and the Abe Foundation. She is a fellow with the National Endowment for the Humanities and at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.
Hosted by: Alexa Raad & Leslie Daigle
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