I can’t stand TikTok.
My kids use it, though I wish they wouldn’t. (If you wonder why they do despite my objections… recall I am not their only parent.)
If you don’t know: TikTok is a social media app that serves an endless stream of user-generated short videos. It’s proven
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But the current fight over TikTok has less to do with what TikTok is than who controls it. Because ByteDance, the company that makes TikTok, is — do I even have to say it, do I have to say the C-word? — well, it’s Chinese.
In 2020, Democrats and the media essentially barred anyone from discussing the possibility the novel coronavirus had leaked from a Chinese lab. Doing so was a sign of anti-Asian prejudice, they said.
But we’re not in 2020 anymore. A Democrat is President, not that naughty Donald Trump, who had the nerve to call a virus that emerged from China the “China virus.”
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(So many experts, so many warnings.)
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Thus reporters can once again admit the People’s Republic of China doesn’t always tell the truth about exactly what’s happening inside its borders. Or outside them.
TikTok has over 150 million American users – around half of all Americans – and is ubiquitous among people under 30. It hoovers up data about those people. It has been accused for years of presenting “misinformation” or “disinformation” on subjects important to the Chinese government, including Taiwan and Tibet.
The United States Army became concerned enough about TikTok by late 2019 that it banned the app from all military-owned devices as a threat. By 2023 that ban had been expanded to all devices owned by government agencies or their contractors.
So.
Now that we all agree China may not be the best friend the United States of America has ever had, what – if anything – do we do about the fact ByteDance owns TikTok?
This question has exploded since last week, when the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to make ByteDance sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company within six months – or face a ban of the app in the United States.
But the answer is not as simple as it first seems.
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