The TikTok Ban: The Birth of the America's Great Firewall

Who would think emulating China would make the US more free?

Rich Turrin

Mar 14, 2024

Hr 7521 Tiktok Divestment

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It’s hard to see precisely what threat the forced divestiture of TikTok from its Chinese parent, Douyin, will eliminate.

The bill’s solution, creating an American Great Firewall like China’s by blocking TikTok, is undoubtedly a slippery slope that begs the question: “Who’s next?”

Washington's facile answer is that this divestiture will keep data out of China’s hands, which is ludicrous when US data brokers openly sell US citizen’s data on open markets.

Congress should know this because the CIA, NSA, and DIA are regular customers of data brokers, a fact that has been in all the news lately.

“Not a single thing that we heard in today's classified briefing was unique to TikTok. It was things that happen on every single social media platform,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.

If we ignore TikTok’s efforts to store all data on US-managed data centers to comply with Trump-era restrictions and assume that China’s government gets every bit of US data, what exactly is in there that they can’t already buy or obtain freely?

The irony is that the answer is nothing. They can already buy it all.

The other trope is that TikTok spreads propaganda. This is equally absurd as the TikTok algorithm is famed for showing you what you want. If you want videos warning of China’s pending economic collapse, the algorithm will queue them all day.

Do China’s propagandists use TikTok? Undoubtedly, just as it is used by US propagandist Voice of America or President Biden himself. Welcome to social media.

The US Great Firewall

The actual crime against Americans that Congress dares not talk about is that they have no control over their data, no matter what country owns the app.

Big tech’s “surveillance capitalism” is unstoppable and is a crime that is equally shared by all social media platforms regardless of country of origin.

“The answer to authoritarianism is not more authoritarianism,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif. “The answer to CCP-style propaganda is not CCP-style oppression. Let us slow down before we blunder down this very steep and slippery slope.”

Building a US Great Firewall is a slippery slope and restrictive of American freedom. It lays to waste the concept of an open internet by the very same people who claim the US’s moral superiority over China based on its firewall.

We can only hope that more level-headed senators do not pass this Bill and realize what thin ice they are on.

If the divestiture bill is passed, rest assured that TikTok users in the US will evade the ban with VPNs and side-loaded app versions. This is precisely what Chinese citizens behind China’s Great Firewall do with US apps!

If that isn’t ironic, what is?

👉TAKEAWAYS

The forced sale of TikTok will not solve the US’s personal data problems. The real solution is strict data privacy laws for all, but big tech will not allow them despite the precedent of the EU’s GDPR.
US intelligence agencies buy data on US citizens from data brokers, and nothing can stop China or any other adversary from doing the same.
The concept that China “can’t get the data without TikTok” is deeply flawed.
The Chinese government will not allow the divestiture of TikTok’s US operations from its parent company and will, as a result, force the US to remove it from app stores.
The reality is that the US is so galled by China having the world’s No. 1 app that it must be killed no matter the cost to America’s freedom or the livelihoods of those who use the platform for business.
Research has shown conclusively that TikTok and its data policies are worse than Facebook or other social media platforms.
Huawei was first to be called a national security threat and now, it's TikTok’s turn.
Next up are Chinese EVs and Container Cranes.
I do not expect it ever to end.

Thoughts?