If by "present problem" you mean, the fact that TikTok happens to have been built by a Chinese company, then I see what you mean.
Even still, for a democracy, the best protection against any potential threat is to prepare its citizens. In this case, the citizenry needs to be prepared cognitively.
Arguably, it would help, if we started early -- get them while they are young?
I don't see what other long-term things that a democracy can do.
Other than starting a war in the near-term, I suppose?
>In this case, the citizenry needs to be prepared cognitively.
This is such a pie in the sky suggestion that I'm forced to wonder if you even pay attention to US politics. To give you some context some of the biggest issues in education right now is:
1. Arming teachers with rifles
2. Dismantling the public school system and replacing them with vouchers.
The last federally mandated educational solution, No Child Left Behind, was a massive failure and has soured most future federally mandated educational policies. Asking underfunded teachers to teach 9 year olds why they shouldn't use the "funny cat app" because of complex geopolitics will end up ignored at best or lead to incredibly xenophobia at worst (Ms. Adams told me not to use TikTok because China is evil, henceforth all asians are out to trick me).
>I don't see what other long-term things that a democracy can do.
Actually enforce data privacy laws universally. Of course this will anger the Facebook/Google trillion dollar oligarchs so we are told there is nothing we can do. The crux of the issue is that US wants everyone else data (EU, Oceania, Asia) but it doesn't want other companies to do the same. Your solutions are either you ban it for hegemony reasons, and pray that Europe/India/Japan/Australia doesn't enact the same law, or you ban it for privacy reasons.
> Even still, for a democracy, the best protection against any potential threat is to prepare its citizens. In this case, the citizenry needs to be prepared cognitively.
There's no way I would trust managers, certainly, their managers to not simply regurgitate the most "CNN-friendly" curriculum imaginable. Maybe pre-2015 I would agree. US education simply isn't a trustworthy system at the moment. The threat has already arrived and the good teachers are leaving in droves.
If by "present problem" you mean, the fact that TikTok happens to have been built by a Chinese company, then I see what you mean.
Even still, for a democracy, the best protection against any potential threat is to prepare its citizens. In this case, the citizenry needs to be prepared cognitively.
Arguably, it would help, if we started early -- get them while they are young?
I don't see what other long-term things that a democracy can do.
Other than starting a war in the near-term, I suppose?