Imagine Congress passed a law to ban a Marxist Chinese spyware/social-malware software, the president signed it, and the Supreme Court upheld it, but nothing made it happen.
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That is where we are right now with TikTok, despite SCOTUS supporting the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats Act ( RESTRICT Act ), which was signed into law in April of last year.
According to the Washington Post writeup, the Supreme Court on Friday “refused to obstruct a federal legislation that would essentially ban TikTok in the United States as early as this trip” if the wildly popular video-sharing software does not sell from Chinese ownership.” By regulation, TikTok may be ordered to sell itself to a U. S. user or stop U. S. functions on Sunday.
Thus far, so great. However, just following the law and doing the proper thing for national security in the Year of Our Absurdities 2025 won’t be so simple.
Before we get to yesterday’s follies, here is a very quick preview of what’s bad with TikTok.
The video-sharing app collects reams of data, just like privacy-busting behemoths such as Meta ( owner of Instagram and Facebook ) and Alphabet ( parent of Google ). While China’s ByteDance corporation ( owner of TikTok ) pinky-swears that data doesn’t reach China … well, you’ll just have to take their word for it, and Xi Jinping’s, too.
Worse, TikTok’s American variation is intended to promote social contagions, highlighting the most objectionable behaviors and making its generally younger users believe they are normal. It’s a cleaning software, in other words. The Chinese version of TikTok serves its young viewers a healthy diet of knowledge, systems, math, history, life abilities, patriotic themes, physical health, etc.
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China insists that we grant our children access to TikTok, but it does not permit any European social media apps there. ByteDance is so valuable to Beijing that it would rather stop conducting U.S. businesses than offer up its standing in this regard.
Presidentish Joe Biden, with only three days left in company, says he didn’t enforce the ban. The retiring semi-POTUS “has decided to pass the blame to President-elect Donald Trump,” according to the New York Post‘s report on Thursday. Given the numerous last-minute professional commands the Biden White House has issued in its” stealthy” work to stifle President-elect Trump before he even takes the oath of office, that’s rich.
Trump, but, signaled that he’s ready to make a package with Beijing to preserve TikTok humming and tocking.
Mike Waltz, the incoming White House national security adviser, told Fox News,” We will put measures in place to prevent TikTok from going dark.” The president is required by law to continue funding Socialist operations of the spyware app” as long as a worthwhile deal is on the table is on the table.”
Ironically, it was Trump who initiated the TikTok restrictions in his final year in office. As senator, Trump signed the initial 2020 executive order banning TikTok, citing” reliable information” that ByteDance “might taking actions that threatens to affect the national safety of the United States”.
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Now, Trump promises to” save” the social malware platform.
You’re aware that I’ve been a member of the Trump Train for three elections, but backtracks like this one illustrate the sporadic weakness of having a booster/negotiator for the president rather than a conservative with strong and enduring convictions.
The story is developing and — who knows? Trump might follow his lead by doing what he promised to do with TikTok in 2020 once he is back in office.  ,
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