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by JumpCrisscross 827 days ago
> TikTok is a propaganda threat controlled by a non-friendly state to the US

Yes. Would you have been offended when during the Revolutionary War we restricted British propaganda? German and Nazi propaganda in the World Wars? Soviet propaganda in the Cold War?

Let’s reverse the roles. How thrilled would we be if we could have had a propaganda arm active and accepted in Nazi Germany or the CCCP? If we had person-by-person profiles of interests and affiliations for every person in Russia or Iran?

1 comments

I wouldn't be offended but we didn't really do any of that, at least not as a systematic government effort. We required registration of foreign agents which the government used as a basis to stop Nazi propaganda newspapers when they didn't register. But they had the option to register. Sputnik radio is registered and broadcasting today in the US. The strict interpretation of the Espionage Act that Wilson et al wanted was later overturned.
We absolutely restricted distribution of state-controlled news.

We didn’t block it. Same as, even if ByteDance refuses to divest, this bill wouldn’t block TikTok from being accessed on the web. It’s just taking it out of American app stores and off American hosting services.

What do you think will happen when all Americans start side-loading it?
> What do you think will happen when all Americans start side-loading it?

We will have a new debate.

Nobody wants to kill TikTok. There is simply way too much money in it.

If nobody wants to kill TikTok, then what is the point of removing it from the app store?

Has anyone considered that the content pushed on TikTok is actually the content Americans want? Perhaps the reason TikTok is super popular is precisely because of their tailored content.