why the explanation for a tiktok ban-vestment doesn't make a lot of sense

Seems like the only thing American lawmakers can agree on is forcing TikTok to be sold or face a nationwide ban. But their reasoning is less than ironclad.

Sure, our radioactive dumpster fire of a Congress may behave more like a WWE setup that never gets to the actual wrestling rather than a real legislative body. Yes, they just can’t seem to figure out things like healthcare, immigration, policing and gun reforms, or regulating pollution that’s literally killings us, no matter how popular a solution may be among voters. It also appears that it doesn’t want to reign in a Supreme Court that plays Calvinball with the law in its long, demented quest to strip most of the nation’s citizens of bodily autonomy, and openly takes bribes. But what can bring it together is the existential crisis posed by… TikTok?

Now, we could say that 20% of the app is owned by ByteDance, the company which, yes, is headquartered in Beijing and has to give the Chinese government access to its data to even operate in the country. We can also point out that 20% more is owned by employees around the world and who knows where their allegiances lie. After all, quite a few live in countries where democracy is not a thing, and human right records aren’t exactly glowing. Hell, in China’s case activists made a viral song out of a pithy warning about its regime from a Hong Kong protester. (Japanese and American investors own the remaining majority of the company, but let’s put that aside for the time being.)

According to our politicians, China could use TikTok to manipulate the public with the app’s recommendation algorithm, pumping out a steady stream of anti-American and anti-Western propaganda videos by using its leverage over ByteDance. And if you so happen to have doubts about this justification for banning the app or forcing the sale of its Chinese stake to an American company, prepare to be accused of defending or working for the Chinese Communist Party and putting national security and welfare, as well as the safety of citizens, at risk. It’s classic red-bating which still works like a charm thanks to America’s schizophrenic politics.

the anti-west propagandists next door

Before you start accusing me of being a useful idiot for China just so I don’t have to give up an app, let’s consider an important question. If the Congressfossils are right and Xi Jinping’s ultimate goal is to use TikTok to brainwash Americans against their own government, what exactly would he have ByteDance do that Fox News, Sinclair, OAN, Newsmax, or AM radio already don’t do at a national scale? Turn on right wing media and you’ll encounter a nonstop stream of rhetoric encouraging insurrection, paranoia, ignoring courts and elections when the results don’t go your way, and the persistent hinting that domestic terrorism and civil war are justified.

The last presidential election? Stolen by sinister Marxist Illuminati cannibal pedophile Reptoids. The insurrection? A hoax by the FBI and Antifa to stop a peaceful handover of power to the candidate they supported because reasons. Immigrants? All of them are evil, diseased, and being brought over by the Jews to replace you. Your friends? Plotting against you. Your neighbors? Probably part of the Satanic cannibalistic cabal and are planning to eat you. School shootings? Another hoax to justify taking all your guns so you’re defenseless when the totalitarian New World Order takes over. Trust no one, fear everyone and everything, and fight “to take your country back.”

What more could China, Russia, or any other adversarial power possibly do that the right wing media ecosystem hasn’t already been doing for decades? And how would TikTok in American hands be better at handling anti-American content if Facebook, YouTube, and The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter have been boosting far right conspiracy theories for years because they get great engagement and make money for their owners? Hell, after Elon Musk got stuck buying Twitter, he created what can only be described as a haven for those who hate the government, and think the idea of democracy is overrated and probably just a Jewish plot against “real patriots.”

how we’re testing the limits of free speech

I would understand if the divestment of TikTok came as part of a privacy package to protect users’ data on all social media platforms from prying eyes and allow properly qualified researchers to diagnose and track the spread of disinformation and foreign propaganda. After all, if the goal is to protect us from spies, data brokers, influence peddlers, and lies to undermine social cohesion, why is TikTok singled out as the one and only threat and not used as a poster child of bringing unhinged rhetoric and grift to heel? It’s not like the aforementioned problems are imaginary and there isn’t work to be done across the entire digital landscape to fix them.

Why is it a problem if China tells you to hate and fear your family, friends, neighbors, and the government, and that you should really consider violence if elections don’t give you the desired results, but we get a shrug when the incendiary bellows come from Fox or Newsmax? If someone created a channel called ISIS TV dedicated to a constant call to jihad against America’s urban hubs, it would be shut down instantly. Yet we have millions of people tuning into Ya’ll Qaeda TV every day with nary a peep and told that their speech is protected under the First Amendment. Okay, fine. Why don’t TikTokers fall under the same protections?

All that leaves us with a quandary. Certainly, it’s a problem when a government with adversarial intentions and committed to building cyberpunk dystopias across two of the largest continents on the planet has a hefty stake in a social platform used by a billion people. But if we’re going to use the potential of anti-American and anti-West demagoguery and propaganda on that platform to regulate it, why do we also tolerate very real and current anti-American, anti-West, pro-Russia, pro-civil war tirades of far right media and the social networks where they flourish by exploiting algorithms and browbeat owners into exempting them from the terms of service?