Any suggestion that TikTok poses no real threat to U.S. interests is staggeringly naive. Imagine if CBS, NBC, FOX, and ABC were all owned and operated by the government of America’s greatest adversary—that’s essentially what we’re dealing with. Meanwhile, Chinese citizens are explicitly barred from accessing TikTok in China, and American social media companies are shut out of China’s market altogether. There’s no credible argument that TikTok doesn’t undermine U.S. interests; the only reason people are reacting so emotionally now is that our government took far too long to address this blatant national security risk.
It's more like, if China started their own news network and American citizens began to prefer it over CBS, NBC and FOX because of the extremely shoddy level of content available on those local networks.
Channel 5 already did that, it's more like of if they did that and also got to inject each viewer with a little bit of cocaine multiple times a minute while being able to figure out exactly what to show them next and how much cocaine to give them.
It is not the same. These news networks as well as papers like the NYT still count as authoritative sources. Almost all pundits on YouTube, even on dissenting channels, still use these to know what is going on.
The real danger is indoctrinating teenagers. For example, China could spread extreme wokeness and tell girls (indirectly via influencers) that having children is oppressive. This sort of propaganda is easier and well known to US adherents of Bernays. The US is world leader in this.
> Wasn’t it China at one time that placed limits on the number of children you could have?
But considering the statistics at that time, one could say that it was reasonable. It is better to limit the birth of children rather than, after some time, let natural selection to kill the weakest for starvation or lack of proper environment.
One could say this ban is reasonable. Better to remove an app that is clearly linked to misinformation and spreading unrest in the US than to let the app continue to make it easy to spread lies and manipulate people.
I don’t believe X or Meta or any other large platforms should have free rein to enable foreign influence with falsehoods and misleading attribution like they do. A ban may not be appropriate, but it’s outrageous that X and Facebook are effectively used by foreign powers to pinpoint target propaganda to individuals to sway elections. This is unprecedented and must be responded to.
> Imagine if CBS, NBC, FOX, and ABC were all owned and operated by the government of America’s greatest adversary—that’s essentially what we’re dealing with.
That analogy falls apart by making use the hyperbole of comparing ownership of one social media application to the ownership of all major broadcast media television channels. Or is the U.S. so socially conflicted and institutionally fragile that it not handle one single social media application being owned and operated by 's/the government of/a private company from/' its greatest adversary?
The broadcast TV analogy may be more applicable if Instagram, X, YouTube and Twitch were all operated by the oligarchy of a single geopolitical adversary... which arguably could become the case for the E.U. from tomorrow 20th January 2025.
Why is China your enemy? China couldn’t care less about the US. They’re doing their thing now, and they’ll keep doing their thing when China overtakes the US as the top global power.
Why are you so afraid of China?
Do you think there will be a war with the US? I find that extremely unlikely given both nations have atomic bombs and nothing to gain from war.
Do you think the US is gonna get economically bullied by China? Well, that’s what the US does to the rest of the world right now. Ironically, that’s why most of Africa would rather partner with China for economic development than with the western powers. But even then, the US is big enough that it can insulate itself from most of that.
Are you afraid that China will start a war in Taiwan? They might, but didn’t the US start a war in Iraq as recently as 20 years ago. Not to mention all of the other middle east conflicts the US is involved in.
You can’t stop China. They have 4x as many people as the US, and just as big a landmass with plenty of resources. China will become the top global power. But that doesn’t mean that your life will be any worse.
It means that your politicians won’t be able to act with impunity as they have for the past century. It means your billionaires will have to compete with China’s billionaires for investment. It means companies will have more competition.
But at the end of the day, your life won’t change. It will probably get better if we’re being honest. China is not your enemy.
In that case, what exactly would happen? Specifically, go into details.
Here's what would happen: Nothing. People already think America is a terrible country to live in. Sure, certain interest groups would be preferred, probably Palestine over Israel. Maybe something instead of Saudi Arabia. But for the average American? Why should they care?
Any suggestion that TikTok poses no real threat to U.S. interests is staggeringly naive. Imagine if CBS, NBC, FOX, and ABC were all owned and operated by the government of America’s greatest adversary—that’s essentially what we’re dealing with. Meanwhile, Chinese citizens are explicitly barred from accessing TikTok in China, and American social media companies are shut out of China’s market altogether. There’s no credible argument that TikTok doesn’t undermine U.S. interests; the only reason people are reacting so emotionally now is that our government took far too long to address this blatant national security risk.