Comment by HamsterDan
2 months ago
There's at least three separate reasons that justify banning TikTok. If Trump bails them out, it's a complete betrayal of his base and the country at large.
1. Competitive balance. China does not allow US social media companies. If we allow theirs, our industry is essentially fighting with one hand tied behind its back.
2. China controls the algorithm for determining who sees what. This gives them tremendous ability to influence public opinion, and consequently public elections. That cannot be allowed to stand as long as China is hostile to the US.
3. China gets extremely detailed data about the interests and proclivities of millions of Americans, including military personnel and elected officials. This data is not otherwise publicly available and can be used for blackmail and other manipulation. Which is completely unacceptable when we have no mechanism to punish them from doing this short of global nuclear war.
Even ignoring the enormous threat to national sovereignty, TikTok has no redeeming qualities. It's an addiction machine that profits off people wasting away in front a screen. That alone is not a reason to ban it, but it sure does make the case stronger.
Banning TikTok is a clear-cut positive for the American people. Every American adult should be in support.
All of your points except 1. are true of American social media companies. 2., in particular, is widely documented: the Facebook mood manipulation fiasco, Cambridge Analytica, Musk's personal tweaking of the Twitter trending hashtags, and YouTube's heavy-handed censorship of legitimate medical advice during Covid are just a few of the higher profile instances of this.
The important distinction is the whole “hostile foreign government” thing.
None of the stated reasons for the TikTok ban matter except this one: a country who is openly hostile towards us can control what our citizens see. That alone is enough to ban it. War with china is not some far flung fantasy, it’s something both sides have been actively preparing for for a long while.
I would wager that in a modern war scenario, your ability to bend the public support of your enemy’s war effort is going to be a huge factor in the outcome. I don’t really need to explain why; it’s self-evident.
If relations with china were better, the ban would not make sense. If this was a French social network or something, a ban would not make sense. But China is a hostile nation that explicitly aims to oppose the US. It’s not worth letting them walk all over us just out of “fairness.” I don’t want to be fair to China in a future conflict, I want to win.
The real criticism we should be making, is about how relations with china got this bad in the first place. Could there have been more diplomatic treatment? Better trade deals? Agreements on IP ownership? Etc etc… that’s a discussion that would make more sense to have. But given the current relationship between the countries, the TikTok ban is literally the bare minimum we should be doing. I expect a lot more things like this to follow.
> If Trump bails them out, it's a complete betrayal of his base and the country at large.
There is no wall. The Trump "tax cuts" raised taxes on most Americans and cut them for the 1%. Trump has not faced any consequences for betrayal in the past, why would he now?
In fact, TikTok helps promote the lack of awareness of all the above. If anything he'll want to keep it in place, to keep the public misinformed.