government might seize the tech companies offices in the city or even arrest its employees you can imagine how the us government would respond to thatin his article paul suggested there might be a middle ground allowing the us companies to stay in hong kong and work around the law without openly flouting it no matter the outcome this wont be the last collision between the internets two great powersif you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox please sign up hereanother china headache tiktoksecretary of state mike pompeo suggested in a fox news interview that americans should be cautious about using social media apps from chinese companies such as tiktoksome american politicians and government agencies have worried that tiktok owned by the chinese internet giant bytedance is a way for the chinese government to collect data about americans or spread a sanitized view of china in the rest of the world pompeo suggested that the white house would have more to say about this sooni want to take pompeos concerns about tiktok seriously but its hard to know whether we should ive written before that us government officials havent provided evidence to back their warnings that tiktok is essentially an information harvesting conduit for chinas government tiktok says those fears are unfoundedand because of the continuing political and economic tussles between the united states and china see the section above its hard to know when the us government has valid security concerns about apps or mobile phone equipment from chinese companies and when these are bogus fears motivated by nationalismso heres a suggestion for pompeo and other us officials and politicians instead of scary rhetoric show us why we should be worriedbefore we go can internet signals predict coronavirus outbreaks my colleague benedict carey writes about scientists who are using social media activity location data from our smartphones and google searches to come up with forecasts of covid19 outbreaks a couple weeks before infections start to registerive written before about problems with trying to spot seasonal flu outbreaks from patterns in google searches but these researchers say theyve figured out how to work around some inherent flaws in using our digital data to predict diseasewe might get a better look at a mysterious tech company palantir is one of those companies that tech watchers like me cant stop talking about its software helps spies and police do their jobs and there are constant questions that the software either isnt as useful as the company says or is so invasive that its creating a virtual big brother its possible that both are truepalantir has now started on the road to a possible initial public offering my colleague erin griffith writes and if it goes through with it well all get a closer look at the companys inner workingsa word of caution some readers raised a concern about mondays tech tip which walked through the steps for using a fan with a smart plug as with any use of an