TikTok Ban

The same Republicans who howled that the government was meddling with Twitter during the 2020 presidential campaign are now trying to ban TikTok or force its sale.

The House passed a bipartisan bill requiring ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to sell the platform within 180 days or be banned in the United States. While it’s more of an uphill battle to pass in the Senate, President Biden said he will sign the bill into law. From there, it faces challenges in the courts.

As difficult as banning TikTok may be, it’ll probably be easier than selling it in the next six months. These things can be complicated. This isn’t like selling Trump Tower to get an insurance bond to pay a huge legal fine for grifting.

TikTok may be worth over $150 billion which would make it hard to sell and difficult to attract a buyer. Since it’s a tech company, it would probably have to leap antitrust hurdles, not just in this country but also in other nations. While the Chinese government doesn’t own TikTok, there will be national resistance to the sale because the U.S. government demands it. How would we react if China said Coca-Cola would no longer be available there unless it was sold to a non-US company? Who are we to make these demands?

The complaint with TikTok is that it’s connected to the Chinese government while mining data from Americans, which is what every social media platform does. Mark Zuckerberg knows what you ate for lunch yesterday. But Mark Zuckerberg isn’t connected to the Chinese government. Does that really matter?

Sure, we can force government employees not to have the app for TikTok on government devices, but is it constitutional to prevent citizens from using it? Don’t we have the freedom to choose to allow TikTok to mine our data? When you research a product such as a tire, then see Firestone ads on social media and every website you visit, you make that choice, even if you don’t read the fine print. Also, the ads you see on this site are your fault. Stop screaming at me.

Another complaint is that TikTok censors content placed on its platform. I know this to be true. Hashtag “Uighurs” and see what happens to your video. But, the Constitution doesn’t guarantee free speech on an internet platform. You do not have free speech on TikTok…or Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, Bluesky, etc. I’ve had cartoons removed from nearly every social media platform, but I have never claimed my constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech was violated, because it wasn’t. I scream about the platform’s inconsistency with its own guidelines and inability to recognize that my cartoons attacking hate groups is not hate speech.

When pre-Elon Twitter removed stories by The New York Post that contained content it claimed was from Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop, Republicans howled that it was censorship. It wasn’t. Twitter could and can remove what it wants. They also howled when Twitter removed photos claimed to be of Hunter Biden’s penis. Republicans claim this cost Trump the election he actually won but was stolen by Joe Biden blah blah blah. You do not have a constitutional right to see Hunter Biden’s penis, no matter how much you Republicans really really really wanna see it. You guys have issues.

They also claim that government agencies told Twitter the laptop story was Russian disinformation. The government did not do this and all those agencies were under Trump at the time, but then again, MAGAts blame Obama for 9/11 and Biden for Trump-era lockdowns. However, Republicans claimed that Twitter was censoring and being controlled by Democrats who were not in power at the time. Now, they want to control TikTok.

Republicans are also worried that China will use TikTok to meddle in the 2024 presidential election while still denying that’s what Russia did in the last two. Chinese authoritarians bad, Russian fascists good.

Unfortunately, a lot of Democrats from Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to President Biden are on board with Republicans attempting to ban or control TikTok. What’s even weirder is that I’m on the same side as Trump on this issue as he recently flip-flopped and is now against this legislation.

Of course, I’m against it because it’s the right thing to do. Trump is against it because of financial interest which is one more concern with a potential second Trump presidency (sic). We don’t need a president who makes decisions based on his financial interests. Republicans claim without evidence that President Biden took bribes while ignoring that a president in huge legal debt would be very easy to bribe…especially if it’s a lying selfish grifter like Trump.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is actually on the opposing side of Trump, voting for the ban. But I bet Large Marge will flip if TikTok allowed her to post pictures of Hunter Biden’s ding dong, which she’s been so obsessed with over the past few years.

Marjorie probably thinks Hunter Biden’s penis is a greater threat to this nation than the Gazpacho Police, Bill Gates’ Peachtree dishes, and forest fire-starting Jewish Space Lasers.

Music note: I listened to Stereophonics.

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