TikTok will be banned but it won't solve anything.
The government, especially Congress, does not actually care about your data or your privacy; it is just the opposite.
First and foremost: Who is behind the TikTok angst? Mainly, Facebook and Zuckerberg (aka The Usual Suspects).
This appears to be a protectionism racket as Facebook reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying against its competition. The competition was eating Facebook’s lunch, so they started a lobbying effort in Congress. The lobbying groups started hatching opinion columns and targeted articles promoting dubious stories about TikTok. Many arguments you hear regurgitated on camera, on cable TV news, or being spouted in a Congressional hearing are lobbying doctrine created out of whole cloth in many cases as a distraction. Why was Facebook so interested in dunking on TikTok, as WaPo reports: “Campaign operatives were also encouraged to use TikTok’s prominence as a way to deflect from Meta’s own privacy and antitrust concerns.”
Hmm… Who remembers the Cambridge Analytica scandal? I seriously do and I remember the details quite clearly:
87 million Facebook profiles were handed over to a white Nationalist coup-minded group of assholes pretending to be a political consulting firm. This occurred with (I suspect) Facebook’s full knowledge and aforethought, although they called it an access “loophole.” Zuck called it an API loophole or something; I call that seriously doubtful given the widespread data vacuuming availability of one company’s alleged online survey.
The project was Nationalist Ogre Steve Bannon’s brainchild and funded by the Mercers [who have one hell of a Nazi bent], all while coordinating with wanted fugitive Julian Assange for stolen data. Corrupt general and white Nationalist coup-attempt supporter Michael Flynn was a consultant for SPL Group (The parent company of Cambridge Analytica).
SPL Group of Britain shut Cambridge A down while self-investigating what crimes or other wrongdoings were committed by the staff at Cambridge Analytica. Folks, there is a clue. Of course, they would not be looking for things that may cause real liability, but they will stage an internal investigation as part of their own PR response.
According to Channel 4 News in the UK, the CEO of CA was pretty shady, and the whole senior leadership was a bunch of crooks who openly discussed (on video, no less) bribery, using ex-government spies, fake IDs, and sex workers (including apparently busing in some Ukrainian girls to make a politician look like a pedo). Yes, Cambridge Analytica leadership planned entrapment and possibly an extortion scheme to ensnare non-Nationalists so they could post it on Facebook and other social media.
An important detail: Cambridge Analytica was “just the shell” (meaning, it was just a shell company, and shell corps are usually created to hide true ownership) designed to obscure that SPL in England was doing all the work. So, a major campaign worked with a foreign interest to propagandize and sway an American election. Remember that for later…
The Trump campaign, specifically Paul Manafort (a pardoned felon), Jared Kushner (the guy who received $2B from the Saudi Royals while working in the White House, and somehow that is not a problem for Congress or anyone else in Washington), and Brad Parscale (the campaign’s digital lead) hired Cambridge Analytica after a pressured pitch from Ogre Bannon.
In general, most of the political advertising and consulting industry thought Cambridge Analytica was “overselling its talents.” Some even expressed they doubted that CA would know what to do with tens of millions of rows in a dataset. Wow, that’s harsh but so-Trumpian: Evil intent, corrupt heart, and total buffoonery as a deliverable. My opinion (I realize not shared by others): Facebook sold out 87M of its users to enrich a Christian Nationalist street gang (Ogre Bannon and crew) and install a power-hungry idiot as President that resulted in a coup attempt on Jan 6th during The Insurrection. Zuck was highly favored by Trump and vice versa before their falling out. I don’t think the whole Zuck-Trump chain of events was happenstance. Zuck saw an advantage for himself (read: his wealth, his corporate identity) and backed Trump until Trump does Trump, like every time, turning around rabidly to bite the hand that feeds him.
Some claim that Cambridge Analytica was unsuccessful, but the ideology of the principals of that company won big time with Trump’s election victory supported by far-right Nationalism, the BREXIT debacle, and the Nationalists gaining control in Britain, and the numerous other countries where pan-Nationalism is on the rise.
Who in Congress suggested that we ban Facebook after Cambridge Analytica and a multi-million dollar effort to sway American voters using disinformation and propaganda? What leader in Congress promised to put a bill on the floor to statutorily ban Facebook? I don’t recall Congress doing that, do you??
Foreign influences corrupting America is the main argument against TikTok, but it is not an argument against Facebook, Twitter (South African ProudBaby owned), or Fox News (Australian ownership that is straight-up anti-democracy and anti-America). Why the one-sided response here? Seriously, Facebook’s track record on keeping user data safe is awful and well-documented. Why is nobody talking about this shitshow of a consumer privacy history?!? Could it be that everyone from your local police to the FBI and DHS has warrantless access to Facebook data and not TikTok’s? The federal government is spending millions on social media tracking software that can geo-locate users and activity within a designated area. Could that be it?
There is even a dedicated portal for law enforcement, just fill out a form and get any user data they claim to need:
Has TikTok refused to work with law enforcement? Actually, no, as TikTok’s cooperation seems to be multi-national. So what is it? What is the root problem with TikTok?
Could the real underlying problem be that kids on TikTok have a habit of mocking and fucking with Dear Leader and his sycophants? They have been doing it regularly across a variety of topics, and remember that Dear Leader Porn Star Humper was at the vanguard of screaming for a ban on TikTok after TikTok users messed with one of his propagandistic Fourth Reich rallies. Or did the acolytes of Nationalism just get mad when they did not understand exactly which machine Rage Against the Machine was singing/raging about? I honestly think those things are a bigger variable within this subject than “privacy” or “data security.”
If China is such a threat, why did we allow China to buy $1+T in T-Bills (debt bonds)? If China’s ruling political party ever wanted to send the US economy into a tailspin, they would simply have to dump American debt notes. TikTok is a threat to the nation but setting ourselves up for a $1T bond fire sale against the basis of our economy can be ignored? The government seems to be excellent at finding the wrong problem like the weapons of mass destruction claims in Iraq and fake vials of nerve agents held up at a Congressional hearing.
If China is such a massive threat, why wasn’t there any Congressional action against Ivanka Trump, an advisor to the sitting President at the time, and her “fast-tracked” China trademarks? An advisor to the President was in league with the same threat vector you claim justifies censorship and extreme government action of forcing the sale of a corporation, but what happened in the end on that topic? Absolutely nothing.
Is TikTok the only China-owned social media company? Hardly. Temu is a China-based e-commerce app that had 2.5M more downloads in a single month than TikTok in 2023. Are we banning Temu or are Zuckerberg’s Meta lobbyists not concerned with Amazon’s and Bezos’ competition? Are we going to block and ban Gettr and the Chinese billionaire owner of Gettr/Ogre Bannon’s new BFF? The billionaire that just got arrested on fraud charges and the billionaire that is hanging with a bunch of Americans doing sneaky shit, including illegal lobbying in America? Where is Gettr on the ban list?? Again, how is TikTok Dr. Evil now but we just shrug when it comes to all the other platforms?!?
CapCut is a video editing app owned by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. CapCut is used to edit short videos across numerous social media platforms. Have you heard of any calls to ban CapCut? Is Zuck’s lobbyist-henchmen defending YouTube’s or Adobe’s product turf? Not that I am aware of, nope. Meta’s lobbying efforts are starting to stink to high hell.
Parlor, Gab, and Truth Social are platforms for flat-out white Christian Nationalism (read: F! Nazis) and were purpose-built for misinformation, tearing the fabric of the country apart, and the continuous planning of Dear Leader’s coup plot. Are those platforms getting banned? Nope.
OK, let’s say we “ban” TikTok. How is the ban going to be enforced? Are we going to ban DNS entries? Is the government going to start arresting Domain Name Service engineers for not removing TikTok’s A records (the host records) from root name responders? Are we going to ban VPN tunnels and the VPN providers you see advertised on most tech channels on social media? If a TikTok user VPNs into Canada or Singapore and uses TikTok, does that mean they will send out the police tank and shoot up the ban violators’ homes and/or businesses? What if a college kid sets up a proxy that gets you to TikTok via a hidden route? Drone strikes on college campuses to shut down the proxies? Banning is easy to say while drooling at the lectern, but it is a whole other thing to actually make the ban work. Just ask China and their limited success using their Great Firewall to block their citizens as their citizens use VPN services and Tor routers to easily get around the communist firewall.
Does China’s government suck? Yeah, a lot.
Is the Chinese Commie Party a threat to the US? When we want it to be, sure.
But it is incongruent that we keep China as a permanent favored trading partner [by Senate vote, 9/19/2000] and an investor in American debt as well as American companies and even farms, but the crisis right now is TikTok?!? Not buying it.
TikTok is the only source of anti-American sentiment?? That’s laughable. What about Fox News, OAN, NewsMax, Gab, Parler, Truth, and Manchild Musk’s Twitter? I think Nazism and Christian dominionism is completely anti-American, and those outlets express a full-throated endorsement of Christian Nationalism and authoritarianism every freaking day of the week. So what gives?
Even some people I did like and admire came out with calls for bans regardless of the actual information at hand. Propaganda, OK?!? Why isn’t Facebook held to the same standard, Prof G? Why not Twitter (and fifty other platforms)?!? (I admire Scott in a big way, but WTF dude!) Prof G - go back and review Cambridge Analytica and ask yourself the same question again. How is the Christian Nationalist movement, which included hijacking SCOTUS with whackjob theocrats as they eviscerate civil rights and promoted an Insurrection, a lesser threat?? The continuous Insurrection attempt gets support from a list of US-owned social media platforms. How is the Russian invasion of Ukraine a lesser problem than TikTok (as he seems to state towards the end of this video)? Republicans agree with Democrats, but not for the reasons you seem to be plainly assuming. Republicans see an advantage in getting the Democrats to do their own bidding once again. (Think of Clinton throwing out the Glass-Steagall Act because he was on the ropes over an intern’s blowjob. Oh, Clinton also bombed a baby food factory trying to change the A-blocks on national news. )
I would love to get an invite to the Prof G podcast to debate and understand why TikTok is the world’s biggest problem right now when threats closer to home seem incredibly more urgent. Either I'm right and he is off his rocker on this one or I am totally missing something I can’t see at the moment.
Just as I gathered my outline and research for this essay, I found this excellent video by PoliticsGirl. She has a couple of excellent points including this actually won’t make anyone safer, it had nearly nothing to do with data security, and it is wildly hypocritical to allow every other social media platform to fuck over Americans but then blame only one of them for the industry-wide problems. PG’s comment on the creator’s fund is supiciousAF and goes towards my Zuck-as-the-muckraker thesis.
Here is a final thought: Are you actually telling me it is OK for Apple to have devices made in China but TikTok that runs on that device must be banned? Most security cameras are made in China and the firmware is written in China. Our security cameras!! Are we suggesting banning Chinese-made cameras (or mobiles, or anything else) right now??
The ban TikTok logic has more holes in it than 124 pounds of Swiss cheese.