Put differently, “The ends justify the means.”
It’s a dangerous bargain, even in the best of times. And what a price we’ve paid in this instance: the rule of law, in exchange for TikTok videos.
I sure hope it was worth it.
I don't really know what to say anymore. Like literally just staring at this comment and realizing how utterly cooked we are as a country.
National security is in the interest of all the Americans
No it isn't (there are plenty of people who'd be better off in a less secure America), and certainly not at any cost.
The app is owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Basically the equivalent of a Chinese citizen using a CIA-controlled app to get their news. It's a very bald-faced security threat.
Furthermore, China has explicitly banned any American social media from the Chinese market for years. They know it's dangerous letting foreign nationals control your narrative, probably because they've been exploiting social media for years.
Oh, and there's also the electoral controversy: https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-rigged-romania...
It’s not. It’s 60-something percent owned by international foreign investors outside of China. TikTok user data in the USA is held under TikTok USDS and managed mostly by Oracle as far as I know.
We are in a standoff situation where the only smart move is to call China's bluff. It will hurt Apple, it will hurt TikTok users, but it will match China's policy of fighting market infiltration by foreign adversaries. A more functional administration would have this rubberstamped and banned in a week's time, regardless of free speech or 90% of Americans losing their FYP. Just look at how fast the EU and UK acted against Huawei. There is no such thing as a free lunch, in router technology or social media.
Welcome to American politics, you seem to be new here. This is a regular occurrence and always boils down to framing:
[X] Tiktok is making America look bad vis-a-vis Palestine.
[?] China is a domestic security threat and must be stopped.
Congress will happily axe your favorite doomscrolling app if it's framed as an anti-pedophile move or domestic security issue. That hasn't shocked people in decades.
Furthermore I wouldn't say that "half of Americans" necessarily know whats right for them. We are the fattest nation on the planet, voted Donald Trump into office (twice) and are addicted to social media that we know is harmful. Representative democracy is really a dignified way of letting Americans pretend to control the government while not killing themselves with their own legislation. If direct democracy controlled America's foreign policy, the nation would probably have crumbled by now.