If a foreign-owned video app was found to have the technological capability to read or monitor the thoughts and mental activity of its users in the United States, there would likely be tremendous backlash and outrage, though perhaps not quite as extreme as mind control.
Some potential reactions could include:
- Public anger over a massive intrusion of privacy and violation of civil liberties on a national scale by a foreign entity.
- Demands for the app to be immediately removed from app stores and banned until its mind-reading capabilities are verifiably removed.
- Calls for investigations by Congress, the FTC, and other authorities into how this was allowed and what user data was accessed.
- A rush of lawsuits and legal action against the company by users, consumer groups and state attorneys general.
- Intense scrutiny and criticism of any U.S. companies/platforms that enabled the foreign app’s mind-reading capabilities through lack of oversight.
- Push for much stricter data privacy laws and regulations around emerging mind-reading/brain-computer interface technologies.
- Loss of trust in the entire video app and its parent company, potentially tanking its U.S. userbase.
While not an direct hostile act like mind control, the ability for a foreign corporation to secretly read Americans’ minds would be seen as an unacceptable privacy breach and abuse of power. There would be immense pressure to shut it down and regulate against such capabilities until proper rules are established.
