[potatofarmer45]

The issue here is the spread of Chinese Censorship beyond China. With WeChat, so far, users outside of China are not subjected to the same level of censorship when communicating with other non-Chinese users.

This is different because it subjects all users to a Chinese "standard" which basically means any conspiracy crap about how evil America is and typical whataboutism videos can be prioritized via "algorithms" while a whole range of "sensitive" issues can be blocked. It gives the Chinese government tools that slowly enable it to "guide" discussions online. What is interesting about TikTok is that unlike WeChat, it seems to have users beyond the Chinese diaspora which gives Beijing far more "soft power" influence to craft a "positive image of China"

[Fjolsvith]

Same could be said for other venues of online expression, including the current one.