How will I function? If I can't drop off into the oblivion of TikTok what will I do? Will I have to make eye contact with my kids again? Wait, I don't know if I know how to relate as a human anymore. I may need time off from work? Or to file for disability. Withdrawal symptoms? Will there be a website that I can find those answers on? Oh no!
I don't expect the Supreme Court to intervene on behalf of ByteDance. There simply isn't a persuasive free speech case to be made--Congress isn't banning the platform per se, merely Chinese ownership of the platform as regards its US market. Congress is explicitly authorized to regulate foreign commerce, which means Congress does have the power to say if ByteDance can do business in the US or not.
I find it hard to believe that users and their twerking vids are a means to sabotage US national security, and given the predations that Meta and Google have made on user privacy, Congressional concerns over Chinese violations of user privacy seem hypocritically quaint.
What is telling is that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have voiced interest in undoing or rolling back the ban, and there is speculation that Trump will instruct Pam Bondi not to enforce the ban, even as Trump's Secretary of State pick Marco Rubio testitifed before the Senate that without a more hawkish policy towards China, we will be conceding to China a fair bit of control over Americans' lives.
What will be interesting to see will be if Europe opts to follow suit with a TikTok ban of its own. The EU and the UK already banned the app from government-issued smartphones and devices last spring.
China does not have many friends in the world these days.
How will I function? If I can't drop off into the oblivion of TikTok what will I do? Will I have to make eye contact with my kids again? Wait, I don't know if I know how to relate as a human anymore. I may need time off from work? Or to file for disability. Withdrawal symptoms? Will there be a website that I can find those answers on? Oh no!
One "journalist" the other day credited TikTok with helping her grow as a journalist.
And they wonder why no one takes them seriously any more.
It may not be all bad.... But it isn't all good. Our brains are mushy.
I don't expect the Supreme Court to intervene on behalf of ByteDance. There simply isn't a persuasive free speech case to be made--Congress isn't banning the platform per se, merely Chinese ownership of the platform as regards its US market. Congress is explicitly authorized to regulate foreign commerce, which means Congress does have the power to say if ByteDance can do business in the US or not.
I find it hard to believe that users and their twerking vids are a means to sabotage US national security, and given the predations that Meta and Google have made on user privacy, Congressional concerns over Chinese violations of user privacy seem hypocritically quaint.
What is telling is that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have voiced interest in undoing or rolling back the ban, and there is speculation that Trump will instruct Pam Bondi not to enforce the ban, even as Trump's Secretary of State pick Marco Rubio testitifed before the Senate that without a more hawkish policy towards China, we will be conceding to China a fair bit of control over Americans' lives.
What will be interesting to see will be if Europe opts to follow suit with a TikTok ban of its own. The EU and the UK already banned the app from government-issued smartphones and devices last spring.
China does not have many friends in the world these days.