Why is the US Government banning TikTok and is it for valid reasons? #TikTokBan #USGovernment #ReasonsForBan
Have you wondered why the US government is contemplating banning TikTok and whether there are legitimate grounds for doing so? Here’s what you need to know about this trending topic.
Reasons behind the potential TikTok ban:
- Privacy concerns
- National security risks
- Data collection issues
Timeline of the ban:
- Proposed ban next year
- Implications for current users
Seeking deeper understanding of the US government’s decision? Stay informed about the potential TikTok ban and its implications.
There are a lot of very legitimate security concerns regarding the app.
Yes it has very sketchy ties to the Chinese government.
Mitt Romney just said it was because it made too many kids sympathetic to the Palestinian cause
No. It’s pretty apparent they are using it as a tool to gain access to even more information than they currently have access to as of now if you read the bill or listen to anyone breaking down the bill.
Are there concerns with Tik Tok that are legitimate? Absolutely. Yet the same information is gathered by Meta, Google and the rest without concern? How does that make any sense other than it is a foreign entity so it’s not okay?
In their mind, yes. After the Vietnam war they realized that being able to humanize the other side makes for a very unpopular war. When the gulf war rolled along they were able to completely control what the press had access to. In Iraq journalists would be assigned to a platoon specifically trained in propaganda. Actual reporters, but what they saw was tightly controlled. TikTok eliminates all those efforts. The US government genuinely believes that controlling the narrative is a matter of national security. In order to do that, it needs to be owned by an American company.
There’s security and online privacy issues with user data. China gets all the intel from the app. The US wants that intel for themselves. It’s essentially the ultimatum of “Either the US gets your information or no one does.”
I guess it depends on how you define “legitimate”. Ostensibly its for “national security”, but the government cant just ban a media outlet and yell “national security” as though that makes it okay. They have to actually explain how the media outlet is a threat.
I think it’s rather notable that if you look at the [text of the bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text), nowhere does it actually say what TikTok has supposedly done wrong, other than be owned by a Chinese company. Often in bills, you’ll have a “findings” section which outlines why the bill is being passed in the first place. This bill does not have that. IMO, If TikTok was such a threat to national security, surely it would have been a simple matter to make that case in the bill.
I think there’s a bit of both. There are legitimate problems with security and propaganda capabilities (ironically, Tik Tok tried to convince its users to oppose the ban, proving it can be used for propaganda), but it’s also true that American companies like Facebook and Twitter have major concerns as well. It’s also probably not a coincidence that the senators banning Tik Tok and allowing Facebook use Facebook but not Tik Tok
It’s bad as is because a foreign government can heavily influence the youth in the country just by controlling what trends.
On the other hand, we know that the FBI has weekly meetings with every major US based social media network. We know that US citizens have had their free speech suppressed at the whim of government officials(from both parties).
If TikTok becomes US owned, we’re just trading a potentially bad actor for one who has a track record as a bad actor. The US won’t use it to corrupt/destroy society, but controlling the narrative and suppressing dissonance is still a major issue.
No. There may be plenty of ‘security issues’ with the app, sure. But those have been there and have been well known for years. The US government has said and done materially nothing about it.
However, now that it is being used as *the* primary source for the exposure of genocide in Palestine, all of a sudden it is concerning? Absolutely not. Zionists in power single handidly (and maybe rightfully so) blame it for lifting the veil of lies and misinformation they have tricked the American people into believing about Palestine for 50+ years. All this time Americans have been told that Palestinians are evil, dirty terrorists who are being mercifully retaliated against by heroic Israel who is always somehow wrongfully attacked without provocation.
However, how can you argue with literal video evidence of IDF soldiers gleefully murdering children, aid workers and pillaging whole institutions and cities just for fun? And not just once or twice but literally 100s of times- *on video*. You really can’t. And who was showing this footage before? No one in the AIPAC controlled western media.
But with Tik Tok, these 100% real and unfiltered videos of 5 year olds innocently sitting and playing that then have brains splattered all over the pavement by IDF soldiers have come to light. And they can’t just write a quick press story of “but they were Hamas” and explain it all away. It’s created a very real and visceral reaction in the American people, and rightly so. And for a while, AIPAC let it go because enough people hadn’t seen the videos or weren’t convinced. But more recently, especially with the college protests, this just isn’t true anymore. Everyone has seen them and what’s going on is now just too apparent to ignore: genocide. The tide of public sympathy is shifting away from them – something that’s never really happened before- and they and their propaganda media machine (Hasbara) are panicked.
And who is to blame? Tik Tok. Simple solution: ban it. Are we really to believe for all of the noise about Chinese spying, somehow a switch has flipped overnight and the app is suddenly too dangerous to use not just for government employees, but every citizen in the US as well? You don’t think other SM (Facebook, Google etc) don’t collect your data and sell it to the highest bidder on the world market? Whether it be China, Russia or some other? C’mon. You’ll notice the US government bill or resolution to ban it was passed in the same session where yet again billions of dollars were authorized to be sent to Israel to continue to commit murder and genocide. That in and of itself tells you all you need to know. AIPAC and other wealthy Zionists used the only weapon they have in the US- money- and waved some in the faces of their employees (most politicians) and passed down the order. And so somehow now the app is too dangerous and has to go immediately. And that brings us to where we are today.
China is known for doing exactly this kind of shit.
Any Chinese company is de fecto at the bidding of the communist Chinese government. So it’s not just legitimate security concerns over TikTok as mentioned by others but there are also concerns the Chinese government could instruct BiteDance (who own TikTok) to change its algorithm to influence political opinions.
Let me try to paint a too-close-to-possible scenario. Say the November Presidential election is very close, which right now it is from an electoral college standpoint. The Chinese government might prefer Trump to become president because he is more likely to undermine America’s long term prospects as a world superpower that can revival China. So at the instruction of the Chinese government, BiteDance could change its algorithm to preferentially target TikTok users (e.g. college students) and the frequency of videos sympathetic to Palestine (or Israel depending on the user). The upshot could be that these users feel hopeless and that both Presidential candidates are “just as bad”, or even blame Joe Biden for war that continues to rage there. If enough people don’t vote in November, Trump could win. (For context, in 2020, there were several states won by tens of thousands of votes, and there are like ~15 million college students in the US so influencing only 0.5% of this demographic could change the outcome of the election).
I think this hypothetical shows that influencing political elections can be much more oblique than just a video of “Trump good; Biden bad”. And personally I think it’s a serious concern given how close to the precipice American democracy is right now.
No. They’re trying to stop legitimate criticism
They’re banning it because young people support Palestine
They have influence on the other social media apps as they are US owned. They don’t feel they can control TikTok so they want it gone.
Honestly, its irrelevant if its legitimate. There is ZERO chance that we can keep TikTok from being used in the U.S. I have been the owner of an ISP since 1994. You simply cannot legislate the Internet in the U.S. in a way that cannot be subverted, avoided, ignored, or otherwise manipulated to continue its use. All it takes is a VPN connection to another country. Even kids know this. Better to leave the traffic wide open so it can be properly surveilled.
Has anyone read the complete bill??? It’s basically patriot act 2.0. Question, does the state need any more power to “oversee” anything else?
Are there legitimate concerns? Oh, absolutely.
Do I trust the government with that type of power? No! Because if they do it to this, they could do it to so many other things in the future.
My concerns with the app Security and data going to China is one of them, but it’s not the biggest one for me. The biggest one for me is the influence it can have on those that use it a large amount. the way it affects attention span, the way the algorithm is built to push people onto more meaningless and or controversial and subversive topics. There is a reason it has an entirely different algorithm in China that pushes towards STEM and learning type videos.
so, there is a legit data concern, as china gets access to tiktok data. however…all companies steal your data? and sell that data off to the highest bidder? so china could probably get their hands on it anyway? plus, the u.s. government has proved time and again that they do not even remotely give a shit about you, your safety, or your data. you and it does not matter to them at all, even remotely. this is why despite fearmongering and threatening about it for a couple years, they haven’t done it already
what the main reason is is that tiktok is a great source of information that goes against american media narratives. mitt romney just openly admitted they’re doing it because there’s too much anti-genocide pro-palestine content on the app. and THAT’S why it’s only happening now. a u.s. ethnonationalist settler colonial puppet state is having their image threatened by the app, so the u.s. is cracking down to stop that
Ask AIPAC. And Mitt Romney.
The US can’t control what’s on TikTok, anyone saying it’s for security have been bamboozled by propaganda lol.
I’d like for the government to further address laws regarding companies’ obligations to protect data and punitive punishments for failing to protect it. As well as what types of data can be collected for use. That might take care of the issue all together.
Security and removing access to US behaviours from China
Also economic protectionism
No. It’s a money grab, as well as losing the narrative on the massacre in Palestine.
Several possibilities
They can’t control tik Tok hence can’t control the narratives
Tik Tok is a vehicle for misinformation hence controlling public sentiment opinion.
So take your pick
Either people are controlled by tik Tok or government can’t control tik Tok
They are banning the app because it’s not under US control, so the narrative is out of their control. They don’t mind FB and Google promoting fascism, but TikTok being Anti Israel, let’s ban it.
The concerns are legitimate, but reasonable minds can disagree, especially on what’s an appropriate action. People are talking about the technical security issues, but I will also raise another type of analogous concern.
Slightly oversimplified, but the US government forbids foreign actors from owning over 20% media companies. The Australian, now American, owner of Fox had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get ownership for this exact reason. Tik Tok is not directly effected by the law, but it’s a similar national interest.
Source: https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-policies-common-carrier-aeronautical-en-route-and-aeronautical#:~:text=Section%20310(b)(3,or%20aeronautical%20radio%20station%20licensee.
The basic argument is this.
Social Media companies can gather enough data on individual citizens as to be a threat to the users and our nation.
US based companies are allowed to have this power. Chinese companies are not.
no. If there were, why can’t they tell us? if there are, why does it not apply to the other social medias? if it’s about data, why can’t we have secure data policy like they have in the EU? if it’s china, what about all the other foreign investors here ruining water, etc? if it’s fake news and political influence, why aren’t they policing themselves when they break the law and foxnews?
news, small business, shopping, without regulation and out of their control.
bill writer invested in meta. it’s all about control, and you should be concerned even if you don’t use it.
I also don’t use TikTok, but the answer is no. In fact, the answer is always no when it comes to the question of “Does the government have a legitimate reason for banning (insert anything here)?”
Edit: That being said, the American people are EXTREMELY paranoid about their government and also businesses, detrimentally so. People keep mentioning the fact that social media sites, like TikTok, sell user data. And this is apparently bad because…reasons. what does this data actually do that could be harmful?
The answer is nothing. The data that’s sold isn’t your bank info. It’s not your SSN, it isn’t even your physical address. It’s what you like to eat or watch, what music you’re interested in, your free email address that you can easily make a new one at any time for free, etc. This is apparently cause for concern for so many people.
Everyone inherently wants privacy, but there are different levels of privacy that we should care about or shouldn’t give a shit about. And 99% of data collection and selling is the shit we shouldn’t care about.
I’ll also say that I trust organizations such as governments or businesses over any individual citizen any day of the week with my arbitrary advertisement data.
The issue with this ban isn’t about data, which is largely useless. It’s about the idea that a hostile foreign country can control an algorithm. And despite what people believe, American companies, especially social media ones, are under no control from the US government and often buck under any attempts at such. They have the thinnest veneer of censorship. The same cannot be said for Chinese companies. People often do the whataboutism with American social media companies like X or Meta, Google, etc. They are not under direct control from the US government and act separately from them. This is how it is and SHOULD be.
Trying to ban a social media site, however, is very much paranoia when there’s no proof that that company has done anything illegal. Yet people fall for supporting this because of their incredibly brain-dead thinking of “social media bad”.
They don’t want us to see the annihilation of a people.
To silence pro Palestinian people and news
It’s disturbing the war.
China has had lengthy evidence of not being trusted and we have caught a number of spies in the US for stealing technology, generating false natives brought content farms, and a number of other espionage activities in recent years. From the sheet amount of data collected by the CCP on tiktok and the tracking record is a corner they may use the platform as a tool to influence politics and policy to deal with future world politics. For example you could force a trend with the algorithm to push for pro China policies such as dealing with Taiwan or redirect hatred for politicians who go against their interest. It’s a liability for a fairly probable adversary we will have conflict with in the Pacific in the next 30 years. We have already started to retrofit our military for an island hoping campaign.
Mitt Romney & Blinken both said it themselves. There are too many pro-Palestine posts on TikTok compared to any other US owned social media app.
AIPC lobby Blinken himself said that, like two days ago.
It’s literally because they can’t control the narratives: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawmakers-admit-they-want-to-ban-tiktok-over-pro-palestinian-content/ar-BB1lVkPt
Y’all think ‘Merica is so free — it is not. It is only the illusion of free.
They are banning it because Israel wants it banned and Israel owns most of the US politicians through AIPAC. TikTok is one of the places where Americans could find legitimate info about the ongoing genocide Israel is committing.
Watch the comments made by Blinken yesterday, he pretty much admits it.
Any ban on TikTok will be very short. It’s too valuable to kill off. This potential ban is simply part of a broader power struggle between the companies that control our government and a Chinese government controlled company with a sprinkle of US national security concerns.
I say a sprinkle because all the major media platforms have competing political and corporate interests working to sway minds of all ages in their preferred direction. Why? Because it’s an effective tool for those who are greedy and power hungry.
So, the only question is who will win the majority of control over this particular platform.
One of the reasons It’s being banned because it is exposing Israel crimes in Gaza
[as discussed here](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/07/israel-al-jazeera-us-tiktok-ban)
It’s the obvious who controls America and TikTok In its current free for all form is a threat to them and their narratives.
Yes and no.
There are genuinely good reasons, but almost none that are *specific* to TikTok. However, where our legislature is unwilling to regulate American companies behind questionable social media (such as trying to regulate Meta for the impact of Instagram and Facebook), they have no problem attacking foreign companies, and TikTok is the biggest ‘foreign’ social media app in the U.S.
Yes, they are unable to control the narrative, people are seeing the truth which the US propaganda machine doesn’t like. They control what you can and can’t see on Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc.
People are seeing what’s happening on the ground in gaza, at US campuses and it doesn’t match what Congress wants.
The given reasons that politicians are confessing are “it reaches too many people, so legacy media web sites can’t compete, and we can’t control the narrative.”
The US government telling people to be more afraid of China having data than the US regime having data is just revived red scare stuff recycled from last century. If people are more afraid of China than they are the US, that’s how you know the American propaganda is working.
Just find it interesting that TikTok is owned by ByteDance which is invested into by KKR… based out of New York
The answer is… Americans.
They’re always, always, 100% of the day, thinking about “Their information” when I say “they’re” I meann the people that refuse to provide the credit card information to an online page while buying things online… with the credit card.
It’s just a matter of “What would happen if… ” so ANY information from the united states must stay in the united states. that’s it. Don’t look for more reasons, it’s just that.
To prevent, to be carefull, to avoid any chance of a possibility of a variant future where that information is used for /anything/ because if they’re banning the app instead of a direct attack to the application is because they have found no proof at all.
Data concerns and AIPAC wanting it gone since it (accurately) is showing Israel in a negative light
The reasons they give are legitimate. But probably, they actually care more about money entering American pockets instead of Chinese pockets than actually protecting the privacy of Americans. Or they’d be doing a lot more than tik tok.