…I find that TikTok has already been restored, and I say, WTF. What kind of a bullshit ban was that? I looked at it last night around 9 or 10 p.m. and it was dark; this morning by noon it was alive and kicking. And I say, WTF again. I have tried not to consume a lot of TikTok. I abstained for a long time, until the pull of a new potential way to promote my music and my writing intrigued me enough to download the app and to create a profile. I used it for that purpose for a number of months, must have decided that it had a negligible impact on the promotion of my own creative endeavors, and stopped posting. However, I kept using the app. I would admit to maybe once or twice a day engaging with TikTok. I was immediately seeing things that interested me. Funny videos, sure, and music things, but also videos that appealed to my lefty sensibilities, interviews, debates, speeches, news clips. This did not seem like a tool for propaganda, but rather, a tool that in pretty short order could dial in some super specific proclivities of its users and to deliver an almost non-stop feed of things that would interest. I’m not really proud of the fact that I got sucked in, but I am not entirely ready to dismiss the time I’ve spent there as being wasted. I was entertained and I learned some things. And, truth be told, I wasted some time.
As of yesterday, a ban of TikTok in the United States took place, upheld by the Supreme Court. Again, the app actually went dark yesterday. So looking for an answer to my WTF moment as the app magically appeared operational again this morning, I did some reading. Apparently, the company that runs the app felt confident bringing it back on line, despite the threatened penalties, because Our Orange One promised, once inaugurated, to make an executive order to allow the parent company more time to find an American buyer. And my initial question was: why would the U.S., outside of a kind of knee-jerk jingoistic racism, want TikTok divested from its Chinese origins in the first place?
From the Associated Press: “In Washington, lawmakers and administration officials have long raised concerns about TikTok, warning the algorithm that fuels what users see is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities. But to date, the U.S. has not publicly provided evidence of TikTok handing user data to Chinese authorities or tinkering with its algorithm to benefit Chinese interests.”
Of course there’s no evidence made public, because there’s likely no evidence! We appear to live in a post-evidence United States, as we have seen over the last eight years and as we will continue to experience, likely at dangerous new heights, in the next four. I don’t know how my viewing of Jen Psaki, Rachel Maddow, AOC, or Sam Harris videos, or those awesome lip syncs by Rach Wilshaw, are benefitting Chinese interests. Fun fact: I was fascinated to learn that the app is not available for Chinese citizens on the mainland. You would think that if the Chinese were interested in manipulating people, they’d begin at home by promoting the TikTok. The Chinese app that Chinese people aren’t allowed to use was banned in the United States! My suspicion is that the Chinese Government doesn’t want their citizens using the app because of a contradictory and competing effect of the TikTok platform, and that is, in my estimation, that it’s one of the slickest applications out there for the spreading of ideas. And perhaps the United States Government, those on the left AND those on the right, are fearful of this particular phenomena taking place against their own interests. So it might be really in response to a fear of their political rivals, more than a fear of foreign meddling. Otherwise, it’s hard to see how the ban ended up with bipartisan support in the first place.
Ultimately, I don’t care that much about TikTok. After being slightly annoyed and a little bit bummed, my life would have gone on just swimmingly without it. I do care, however, about how its ban was justified, about why the evidence of its nefarious nature was never made public, about whether that evidence even exists, about TikTok’s place in contemporary discourse and culture, about whether or not other tech giants in competition had anything to gain from its ban, whether they had anything to do with it, and finally, about whether or not Our Orange One gets credit to his advantage for saving it from banishment. Dear Dog, I hope not, as he was, initially, the guy who got the movement going to ban TikTok in the first place.
michael jarmer 