How would this even work? Get it out of the app stores, fine. But presumably the URL would still be accessible? Likewise sideloading it onto Android devices?
Go after the $ side of it. If it's illegal for US companies to advertise on TikTok, it'll be dead in that market overnight, regardless of app store availability.
If you removed it from the app stores, a humungous percentage of people would no longer install the app. There will certainly be some tech literate folks who do so, but most people have very little tolerance for technical challenges outside of the norm and would stop at, it's not in the app store anymore.
Maybe. For Android it's very easy to sideload, just share a link for an APK download and then open it. Easy and quick enough for even a TikTok-addled ADD brain to do.
Well, not to search very far, but OFAC could simply forbid US persons from interacting with TikTok and its subsidiaries. It would send shock waves through the system, but it can be done.
You can then still sideload stuff, but you are immediately in a violation of OFAC. Naturally, I doubt even US government would be stupid enough to open that particular pandora's box.
So, the thing about championing free speech and free trade is that you also need to allow speech and trade that doesn't benefit you.
If you're interested in giving up America's commitment to either, that's fine, but I'd like to have some say in what other forms of speech and trade are silly to allow.
ummm with how much we are propping up China... a country with concentration camps and that is anti free speech is biting us back if your about free speech... all western films need to be edited to Chinese "speech", all companies must say the right "speech"...
If it feels a bit weird to have your country's media steered by social, cultural, and legal norms[1] of another country, that's just the situation that the rest of the world has been in for a very long time, now, due to America's dominance in international media production.
The United States should not be expected to have a dominating position in media export forever, though, and when its relevance outside the domestic market wanes, its media producers will be free[2] to edit their products with no regard for what the rest of the world thinks of them.
[1] Also, both Television and Hollywood codes were a thing for a very long time.
[2] They are currently free to do so, too, and they exercise that freedom. They just don't do it in a way that is consistent with your values. Since they aren't nationally owned companies, they aren't beholden to you in this respect.
"The United States should not be expected to have a dominating position in media export forever" ?.... who is saying it should? China is trying to dominate the market by limiting others while still being free to export their films to anyone who wants them and forcing foreign films to their "speech"
your saying its fine? that western companies have to bow to the CCP in other to be able to have access to the Chinese market? while we allow them to profit from our free speech/ freedom we have here
