Banning TikTok

This Should Make You Feel Uneasy No Matter Which Side You Are On

Today, the House voted to ban TikTok. The vote was 365-42, and it was a rare good debate with people who normally would not be on the same side of a vote on the same side of a vote.

I am not on TikTok. It is one social app I have resisted. I have read enough about it to know that while the content on it might make you laugh, it is a really toxic app and my feeling is no one should be on it. But, that’s my singular feeling and for the 150MM people in the US that are on it, there would be some disagreement.

Banning a private business in the United States should always make you extremely uneasy. It doesn’t sit well in my stomach. How far should the government go to protect its citizens? If I can ban technological social media platforms, can I ban genetically altered soybean seeds made in other countries? Can I ban oil companies in the name of protecting the planet? Can I ban books from being sold in public markets? (I highlight this because public schools and libraries are different from markets) How far does this go and it relates to the blog I wrote yesterday about college athletics?

Why should the government be involved?

How much power do you want to cede to a centralized government over decisions you make for your own life?

Milton Friedman was great at raising thorny questions. I wish he was alive to think about and pontificate on this one. One thorny issue he raised with people was the use of motorcycle helmets. Should they be mandated? We know for a fact, that motorcyclists are better off using them if they get in an accident. Is society better off? People who need organ donations might be on the side of no-helmet laws. Should I be free to choose what I wear when I am on my motorcycle? If we can make helmets mandatory, where does it stop? Should we mandate heavy steel-toed boots and leather too?

There are several issues around TikTok and it’s impossible to talk about them with nuance in one blog post. Here are some facts.

• The Chinese severely restrict and prohibit American technology inside their countries. Because their market is so large, American companies will bow down to the wishes of the communists. America is a free trade country and we don’t enforce and enact restrictions on foreign technology in the way China does.

• Communists hate Americans. They see themselves as superior. This goes back to Karl Marx and then Trotsky/Lenin. Since the implementation of communism, they see their system of society as far better than capitalism.

• Mao in China, and Stalin in Russia, are as evil as Hitler was and a scourge on the history of humanity. There is no false equivalence here.

• The Chinese communists would love to overthrow the American government and control all the cash flows and assets that America has, but they do not have the military firepower to do it. Instead, they bribe their way and use technology to change opinions.

• Before the Chinese engaged in their virtual invasion of America, there were plenty of communists who were American citizens to help move the ball downfield for them. The United States public school teacher’s union is hard left-leaning, with many people sympathetic to communists in it. Some were government employees, and some were in positions of power like Senator Bernie Sanders.

• At home, the US government has done more and more to take the freedom of choice away from citizens and centralize it in the name of keeping us safe. Since 2003, it has utilized the CIA, FBI, DOJ, National Security committees, and Bureau of Homeland Security to usurp those rights.

• The US government has also used agencies not previously thought of as national security agencies to take rights, choices, and freedom away from US citizens. The SEC, all the different health organizations in the entire federal bureaucracy, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Energy all have engaged in policies that make us less free, while at the same time do virtually nothing for “safety”.

• The current US government has used the power of the entire government to go after political enemies.

TikTok is a startup. It’s social media. Like a lot of social media, it’s highly addictive. Your brain chemicals are affected by social media sites. People have figured out ways to earn income on TikTok like they have other social media sites.

American investors have invested in TikTok and earned millions of dollars in return. This isn’t just a Chinese operation. Some of those investors are high profile, and you could categorize them as freedom-loving libertarian conservatives, not red-diaper lefties who reside comfortably in the Democratic Party.

Here is a Twitter thread that a friend of mine pointed out that explains why you would vote for the ban of TikTok.

Here is a Twitter thread on why you might vote against the ban.

Are there better ways to limit what TikTok, and by definition all other similar apps, do without a ban?

I honestly do not know. My gut says TikTok is a pretty bad thing for US society. I do not trust the Chinese government one iota, and they control TikTok. The best outcome for the Chinese communists is a Civil War, even a cold Civil War, in the US. The best outcome for many bad players in the world, think Putin, North Korea, or Muslim terrorists, is a Civil War in the US.

How far should we go, and what stops us from going further?

Facebook and the rest collect an awful lot of data on us. So do credit card companies and streaming television channels. Should they face the same treatment TikTok is getting?

These are not easy questions to answer.