This announcement doesn’t have anything to do with cryptocurrencies or nfts. I’m not sure if I like the idea yet either, but please don’t conflate it with all that other scammy nonsense.

it is, actually; your argument is a whataboutism, which is logically fallacious

Though I am with you in hating Western Big Tech apologia, I don’t agree with this point overall. Even the sources you linked show that TikTok collects an ungodly amount of data on its users. The Clario study shows that it’s in 6th place… is being lower than Facebook and Instagram supposed to be an accomplishment? And it’s much higher than Twitter and Zoom, which is definitely not a good thing.