It’s not about data. It’s about broadcast content curation (i.e. the TikTok algorithm and how it might be used to change US policy by presenting a very pro-China narrative).
Citizens of the United States have a right to free speech and curation of speech within the United States. Foreign governments do not have this right and having foreign governments directly control the dissemination of information poses a real and active risk (networkcontagion.us/…/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.2…).
This is a principle that’s been applied to traditional broadcast media for decades. It just hasn’t applied to the Internet.
Data privacy laws would be great and we should be worried about how data is being used but, writing good data privacy laws wouldn’t resolve the major issue here.