Well Shit, it looks like TikTok might get banned
Congress decided to bundle the TikTok ban into a foreign aid bill. They pulled a lil' sneaky on us. The bill passed the House and it's expected to pass the Senate because what kind of person votes against foreign aid? A real asshole, that's who. Our policy makers are a lot of things but assholes they are not (joking, they're all assholes).
TikTok is giving all of our data to China
But not really. The ruse we're currently being fed is that the Chinese Government can tap into TikTok's data about U.S. users. TikTok is owned by Chinese-Based company ByteDance. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the argument that TikTok is somehow more dangerous than Facebook, Instagram, X, Youtube, or Snapchat. Remember the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal? What about Meta's involvement in the PRISM Surveillance Program? There's an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to all of X's scandals and controversies.... in alphabetical order. In 2023 Democrat Mark Warner and Republican Marco Rubio, released a statement detailing that Facebook has been aware that developers in countries characterized as "high risk," including China, have access to significant amounts of sensitive user data... since 2018. It seems like TikTok's not the problem.
It's all about the Benjamins
Most things in life can be boiled down to a few key drivers. Love, self-expression, sex, a feeling of belonging. The TikTok ban can be boiled down to money. In fact, if ByteDance sells their stake to a U.S.-Based company we'll likely get to continue using TikTok. Except now, a bunch of congressmen and/or Zuckerberg will own it. There are a few major U.S. investment firms invested in ByteDance (General Atlantic, Susquehanna, and Sequoia Capital) but they're facing a lot of pressure to answer for their investment in a Chinese company. ByteDance is also privately owned so investors can't simply sell their stakes. It's ultimately an illiquid investment. How many policy makers and political donors have ties to one of these investment firms? It sure would be easier to realize a profit without the heat of being invested in a privately held Chinese Company. Since the bill to provide funding to Ukraine and Israel and ban TikTok passed the House, Steven Mnuchin wants to get a group of congressmen together to buy TikTok from ByteDance. Seems pretty sketch to me.
TikTok is an Awesome Tool for Businesses and Community
TikTok is great for sales, reaching your audience, or just sharing valuable content. TikTok became so popular in the first place because of the authenticity of the content. It didn't have the controversies of Meta or X. It's a space where people put out some truly great content. There's everything from educational videos to silly and casual videos to high end professionally produced content. TikTok has also been hailed as a platform that's facilitated open and honest communication between people. It's a place where people can share current events in real time on a platform that's being used by over 1 billion people. Maybe that's the real reason policy makers don't like it. They don't control it.