I dislike TikTok but should you really be banning platforms you don't like?
Sanction them if they misbehave, yes. Prevent most of the population from communicating using it? Absolutely not.
Americans have weird priorities when it comes to freedom. The mental gymnastics I've been seeing trying to justify a ban of a platform to a massive population of people is nuts.
No, it isn't "actually upholding" freedom of speech to ban TikTok.
Congress believes it's a national security threat which is probably true but they haven't bothered explaining this to their constituents at all. Ideally they'd pass comprehensive privacy protection laws to setup standards that both domestic and foreign companies would be subject to. Then companies either adjust their behaviors and meet a certain level of transparency or they would be prosecuted under the law.
But no... We get this instead: a confusing and obviously targeted ultimatum with Congress telling everyone 'trust me bro this is the only way'.
I mean, to be fair, both are extremely bad and should be stopped, but a hostile foreign country gathering data and pushing propaganda on your citizens IS worse than you or non-hostile foreign countries doing it.
I would argue that gathering data about your own citizens is actively worse than china doing it; an average US citizen has a lot more to lose if the 3-letter-agencies or the police use it against them, because those are who you would have to deal with in person.
Valid point. I think the issue is that we know there is no good reason for China to have that data, and we know that they are hostile, so it's an easy decision.
I don't think most Americans want tiktok banned . Unfortunately the US government just does what ever they want and right now there is too much pro Palestine information on tiktok .