[justinzollars]

I support TikTok in this matter. I'm not comfortable with the United States banning companies. We should strive to be the best place on earth to do business in. We are an open country and we benefit from being open. We benefit from competition.

If I'm afraid China is taking my personal information, it's up to me, the consumer, to delete the app. It's up to Apple to design APIs to prevent real theft of such things as passwords left on your clipboard, or location data.

Many people will point to the fact that TikTok is controlled by a single party, the CCP, and may push various points of view. I don't see how that is different than Twitter whose employees give to the Democrats at a North Korean level of popular support [1] (99.8% of political gifts given to non GOP candidates). Twitter famously shadow ban conservatives, cause liberal ideas to "trend", and push a political agenda even if I'm there just for technology news.

Again, comparing TikTok to Twitter, when I load TikTok I see music videos and no politics. When I load Twitter I see riots, violence and people complaining about Trump (24/7 365). It's like looking into the depths of the abyss. Twitter provides a platform for countries to threaten one another, for example Iran threatens Israel on its platform. TikTok provides a platform to make music videos. How is again Twitter superior?

One other point, I wish to make is the way we are handling the transfer of TikTok to Microsoft. We are literally taking TikTok's business and giving it to Microsoft with a "Big fee" paid to the Federal Government. Considering China's history, this will offend them. What if they did the same thing to us? What if they did not trust Apple's business in China? What if they stole Apple's Chinese business, and gave it to Tencent with a fee paid to the CCP?

TikTok is a major accomplishment because it's the first US top rated social network not designed in the United States. This is something to be celebrated and a cause to inspire us to compete to make something even better. Taking it, transferring it or banning it is not the way to go.

[1] https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?...

[reeealloc]

Your points about TikTok's content compared to Twitter's content are interesting, but seem anecdotal and personal to you. I use Twitter almost exclusively for art, and I try to avoid any politics trending or people attacking each other or Trump. TikTok has an abundance of politically-charged content from people with different political views, but it's just not always on the surface (although sometimes it is).

[chrischen]

I would argue banning TikTok if it had politics would be even worse.

Just today Facebook deleted the QAnon group. In a free speech society, such control of “what’s good for us” should not be necessary.

While China’s authoritarian government can certainly be abused, they often ban things under the same excuse of “promoting harmony” and to ensure the public does not have Access to misinformation (nor information harmful to the regime). We’re not much more different if we have powerful players who can arbitrarily ban things under the same goals, even if momentarily altruistic.