Trump Is Right (For The Wrong Reasons): A TikTok Ban In The US Would Be A Huge Problem
from the broken-clocks dept
It’s potentially forgotten in all the other nonsense that has happened over the past four years, but the initial push to “ban TikTok” in the US started right after a bunch of TikTokers reserved fake seats for a rally that Trump’s campaign people thought was going to be mobbed by people and ended up being embarrassingly half empty.
Days later, the Trump administration suddenly announced that TikTok was a national security threat and it was going to get banned. Following that, there was a comedy of errors as the administration couldn’t figure out how to actually ban it, in part because banning a website is almost certainly unconstitutional. Eventually, a month later, Trump issued an executive order banning TikTok, and it didn’t take long for a court to say that Trump can’t actually do that, in part because of the lack of any real evidence of a security threat, and in part because of First Amendment concerns.
It later came out that the entire “ban TikTok” effort was really part of a big grift to try to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to a friend of Donald Trump.
For what it’s worth, the same basic thing happened last year when the state of Montana also tried to ban TikTok only to have it tossed out on First Amendment grounds.
But still, as noted, Congress is really, really into banning TikTok this time around, despite the legal setbacks from the last few attempts. And it didn’t help much that last week TikTok made a hamfisted attempt to have its users call members of Congress to complain.
So, it took some by surprise when Donald Trump came out and said that he no longer supports a TikTok ban because it would only work to help Facebook.
“Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” Trump, who was formerly U.S. president between 2017 and 2021, said in an interview Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
He’s 100% correct. And remember, Facebook’s parent company Meta spent years quietly running a targeted PR campaign among politicians to demonize TikTok, which was the only company in years that showed that Facebook’s supposedly dominant position as the social media king was maybe not quite as dominant as it wanted everyone to believe.
That’s quite an about face for Trump who really kicked off the entire concept of banning TikTok. But, he’s absolutely correct. Again, TikTok proved that it’s possible to build a competitive social network, and the idea that no new entrant could ever succeed in the space was laughable. Knocking TikTok out of the space, or forcing a questionable divestiture to some other giant tech company, would massively help Meta and its Facebook and Instagram properties.
But, of course, there may be other reasons that Trump has turned around on this. As he also correctly noted, there are a lot of young people who love TikTok, and shutting down the app in the US may piss off a lot of younger voters:
“There are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” Trump said.
Indeed. This is another reason why it’s weird to see Democrats so supportive of this move. Even as the Biden re-election campaign is now using TikTok as a tool to get out its message and meeting with famous TikTokers, the administration has come out in support of this unconstitutional ban.
Given that, it’s entirely possible that Trump’s decision here is just straight-up political calculus. The Democrats have been way faster to embrace TikTok than Republicans, and maybe Trump and his handlers saw last week’s flood of calls to Congress and recognized that banning TikTok may suppress the youth vote, which is more likely to go to Biden than Trump.
Of course, as many others pointed out, the flip-flop in Trump’s position also came soon after he met with billionaire Trump supporter Jeff Yass who owns a huge chunk of ByteDance, though Trump denies that had anything to do with it. Yass, however, is spending considerable effort trying to kill the bill.
That said, whether or not Yass has anything to do with this, Trump’s points are actually accurate. Banning or forcing the divestiture of TikTok would be a huge gift to Meta. It could also be a political nightmare for whoever goes through with it.
Still, there is the larger reason that Trump doesn’t mention (perhaps because he argued the other way in the past). It’s almost certainly unconstitutional. It sets a terrible precedent for supposed US freedom — one that will come with significant blowback as other countries demand that successful US companies “divest” from their operations overseas or face similar blocks. I could easily see India or Brazil or other countries demanding a similar sort of remedy and pointing to the US’s actions against TikTok as reason to support it.
Again, the TikTok ban is stupid. If you’re concerned about data exfiltration, pass a comprehensive privacy law. If you’re concerned about manipulation, then better educate the public so that they’re not so easily influenced by an app made to share short videos.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, china, competition, donald trump, joe biden, social media, tiktok ban
Companies: meta, tiktok
Comments on “Trump Is Right (For The Wrong Reasons): A TikTok Ban In The US Would Be A Huge Problem”
Take Trump’s support with a Grain of Salt
I wouldn’t take this as something genuine. The way I see it, it’s possible that he’s using the same strategy like he did with the border, sabotage Congress so Biden gets nothing done. For all we know, this could be a bait-and-switch; he supports TikTok only temporarily, but in the scenario of him winning a second term, Trump could switch his position to ban TikTok thereafter.
Don’t get me wrong, the TikTok ban is an insanely stupid idea and it’s baffling to see Biden support it. But take Trump’s support as a grain of salt. Nothing about him is genuine.
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He’s supporting the opposite of Gov/Congress is proposing, because he only think their own ideas worth anything.
Now, if banning TikTok would turn more into Truth Social, it’s a greater argument against TikTok ban, and in that case, I’m sure Trump would disagree with me.
So even if TikTok, or anything else, is hurting (not that much) Facebook/Meta, it’s no thanks to Trump at all.
Maybe he should have just pass his turn on this subject this time, he doesn’t give any good argument against the ban.
Four years later, he hasn’t even learn to shut up.
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“…sabotage Congress so Biden gets nothing done…”
TDS on full display here.
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You haven’t really kept up what’s going on in Congress, have you?
Re: Re: Re: 'How dare you do what we demanded of you?!'
Republicans: We demand that border funding be added to that foreign aid bill or we won’t support it!
Democrats: If that’s what it takes, fine, we’ll add in funding for border stuff.
Republicans: The utter audacity of thinking that we’d support this bill, how dare the democrats try to do something so underhanded under our noses and try to pass such a terrible bill!
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What does that have to do with Trump preventing Biden from doing anything? Is Trump in power? Congress…?
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Who do you think threw a tantrum about that bill and got the republicans to come out against it?
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Trump sure is powerful. Pulls everyone’s strings
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Trump should prevent Biden from levying all these trumped up charges against him.
That is a lot of sanity packed into one sentence.
Foreign Company Rights
Of course people have the constitutional right to speech, but are you arguing that foreign companies have a constitutional right to operate a business in the United States?
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And what gives you that idea?
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Mike says congress forcing the sale is “almost certainly unconstitutional” but doesn’t explain why it’s unconstitutional.
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Forcing a sale is not unconstitutional itself, it’s the threat or imposition of a ban on a platform that hosts speech in order to facilitate the sale that is. The federal government can restrict access to an app or website on government-owned devices, but it can’t dictate whether the public can or cannot access them on personal devices; First Amendment-protected materials are usually exempted from federal trade restrictions.
The First Amendment precludes embargoes on the importation or exportation of various forms of print, audio and video materials, broadcast materials, artwork and other images, methods of personal communication, and other informational materials (that includes software, which TikTok constitutes). These restrictions on materials protected by the First Amendment (regardless of their country of origin) are already enshrined in the Berman Amendments of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act.
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I don’t disagree with you, and in court, the burden of proof is on the government to show why TikTok is a risk and should be banned.
This is the tough question I have about the first amendment and trade restrictions and banning foreign platforms…. what about foreign data brokerages,which essentially are the same as TikTok? I have the freedom to speak, move, and assemble, what right does a foreign entity have to that information especially if that information is used against me or the US Government?
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They are not actually. They are arguing that tiktok bans are attempts to block US citizens from seeing and/or engaging in certain speech. Which is barred by the 1st Amendment. Also TikTok is incorporated in the US, it’s not a purely foreign entity.
If they could show a legitimate (non-retaliation for speech) reasons TikTok shouldn’t be allowed to do business in the US, MAYBE that might stand. Bus since TikTok is already a incorporated in the US, if there is a problem, it should have already been addressed.
Finally: Even if TikTok was purely a website hosted outside of the US, with no US presence or resources, blocking US citizens from communicating with them would still be a rather extraordinary action. On par with declaring them a member of a state with which the US is actively at war with.
PS/gripe: The first attempt to post this hit a 429 (after which I waited > 60seconds before trying again), despite the fact that I spend > 2 minutes typing this up. Techdirt: please fix your side to not randomly DoS your commenters.
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I don’t honestly know how much of TikTok is controlled by China… that is an open question. There are court opinions that say if a foreign government exerts sufficient control over an entity, it essentially makes the entity the same as the state. So it’s not unconstitutional on face value.
I wonder where the line is… at some point a foreign owned media company doesn’t have unlimited freedom to operate in the United States. (Coming soon! Russia FSB-book…. your social media source for latest news on US Election! Upload your photos of US military installations or secrets today!) I have trouble rectifying Mike’s opinion against data brokerages exfilling data to overseas entities, but it’s ok if the brokerage (tiktok) is owned by a foreign entity???
Also, banning TikTok doesn’t prevent people’s right to speech. It might restrict a specific medium to express themselves but there are alternatives. There is precedent for that… e.g. graffiti, I can’t sing my rendition of “we didn’t start the fire” in the middle of a crowded theatre playing Dune.
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Um, yes you can. At least, as far as the government has any say. Of course since that’s private property the property owners can still kick you out.
But you also missed the bigger picture. It’s already pretty clear the Tiktok ban is about speech. as in what has been said, and what might be said on the platform. The government can’t ban in relation for speech. If there was a non-speech reason, say if Tiktok was clearly engaging in criminal enterprises as part of their services… then (instead of a ban) there would be plenty of legal ground to take care of the already-in-the-states Tiktok presence.
The whole “ban tiktok” has been nonsense layered on nonsense.
Imagine if the government was trying to shut down facebook because “joe moron-and-jerkwad” was saying things they didn’t like (or maybe even… things most people would find repulse, but which were not actually illegal to say. Also Mr. moron-and-jerkwad’s ownership/interest in facebook is immaterial, he might own it, or not).
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FWIG, the ownership structure of ByteDance and its TikTok Inc. unit are broken down as follows:
– ByteDance founders and Chinese/Hong Kong investors (20%)
– other global investors from the U.S. and Europe like Blackrock, Carlyle Group, General Atlantic and Susquehanna International (60%)
– employees (20%)
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The U.S. can regulate foreign companies in a manner similar to domestic ones; furthermore, the federal government can undertake mitigative measures to perceived national security risks that balance constitutional protections, in point of fact, that there are less restrictive measures to mitigate the alleged risks suggest a ban isn’t necessary and therefore a burdensome restriction on speech of the type normally undertaken in authoritarian countries wouldn’t stand up in court as it would be considered a “last resort” measure.
It’s also noted that TikTok Inc., as a subsidiary of ByteDance, is incorporated in Delaware, has offices in L.A., New York and D.C., and has a sizable share of non-Chinese shareholders (like Yass).
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To clarify, the U.S./North American operations of TikTok are incorporated as a Delaware Chancery Corporation, though the global subsidiary is incorporated in the wealthy’s favorite corporate/personal tax haven, the Cayman Islands.
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As long as they pay their taxes and follow the laws of the land, they’re… technically allowed to do so.
Free expression IS a central tenet of the American Way.
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I suspect that the site owner or his minions or those he otherwise associates with may have accepted support from the Chinese Communist Party.
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You mean like trump and the republican party?
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Have you tried not being a dumbass?
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No, Mas takes money from Yass.
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Lol, wut?
Literally until the beginning of this week I’d never even heard of Yass.
It’s embarrassing how you trolls have no argument and immediately jump to “he must be paid off.”
Fuck off.
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TBH, they’ve lost the ability to spell ‘shill’ because they don’t use their brains enough.
Republicans only issue with TikTok is that isn’t an American company profiting off of harm and info of Americans.
Trump's real motive
Trump’s TikTok flip flop (say that five times fast) is a test to see how stupid and arbitrary he can get and still have his minions jump when he snaps his fingers, while he cackles at how spineless they all are.
Anyone else feel the Republicans may be playing the Dems over this? I can see them blaming the Democrats for the ban when there huge backlash or withdrawing support at the last min and acting like they save free speech.
Given who we’re talking about I guarantee his ‘support’ has nothing to do with realizing the ban would be unconstitutional and is entirely contingent upon him believing that opposing the ban benefits him more right now than continuing to support it.
The second that changes he will be back to ‘TikToc is the enemy of the public and must be stopped!’
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It might be similar to supporting only one telecom company such that it becomes a monopoly. It would be better if there were numerous competitors in the telecom sector. Tiktok isn’t the enemy of the public; corporate monopoly social media is the enemy of the public.
how is this legal now?
If the Montana law failed on 1st amendment grounds then how is it suddenly ok when congress does it?
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The Montana ban was a state-level issue. This is a ban at the federal level.
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There’s no difference as to the First Amendment implications, whether as a state or federal act. The implications are extraordinarily burdensome, and unwarranted as less restrictive measures can be undertaken that protect speech rights if a national security risk actually even exists.
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It’s not, much like the constitutions they’re just ignoring the ruling that made clear that such a ban isn’t legal.
The one thing everyone has been missing in this conversation is that TikTok expanded the so-called “creator economy” that platforms like YouTube and Twitch built and which for many is a better option than holding a 9-to-5 job that doesn’t pay as well, not to mention that it allowed small businesses a better venue on social media to acquire customers and draw attention to their products.
Creators and small business owners will get hurt by a ban. For creators, most will lose a source of income (sole or supplementary to other platforms) and struggle to rebuild their fanbase on other platforms (including those who have diversified to other platforms already, like Twitch, YouTube, OnlyFans, etc.) Instagram stopped paying Reels users last year for the content they post, so they can’t make up the difference there. Small businesses will find it more difficult to acquire customers and grow rapidly through viral marketing.
It’s for these reasons why the Trump EO and the Montana ban weren’t only subjected to lawsuits filed by TikTok, but by groups of creators and small business owners, because they ignored that content creation careers and business growth were being put at risk by people who didn’t understand the damage that could be incurred to the creator economy and the small business community; you’ll see creators and business owners sue the government again if the PAFACA becomes law. The government doesn’t seem to understand or care that there are people who will be hurt economically and struggle to regroup because they want to bring people into a geopolitical Cold War/moral panic/performative distraction to real privacy reform that they don’t want to be part of.
I saw some coverage of the hearing & listened to Marco Rubio and Christopher Wray all excited about what MIGHT/COULD happen, Rubio was all upset about misinformation being spread… guessing he isn’t paying attention to the other members of Congress with space lasers, its made of aborted babies, its mind control, its made of people!!!
Of course they had to claim it was all run by a demon AI that could be reprogrammed to turn kids looking at stupid dances into communist agents who hate America in mere seconds.
Stealing our precious data!!! Not sure that knowing this user likes cat videos & that user likes cooking videos is the key to world domination. Of course with concerns over imaginary data gathering Kash Hill just broke a story about how car owners are being opted in (often without their knowledge or consent) into a data mining program that turns over every hard stop or going to fast detail they can gather & data brokers are turning over hundreds of pages of reports to insurance companies who are willing to raise peoples rates with the data they had no idea was being gathered.
But lets panic over imaginary things they are scared of & ignore the actual real threats.
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Trump is never right. Try a new headline or something.
This one is fucking stupid.
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Your hatred for Trump doesn’t change the fact that he actually made a salient point for once, though inadvertently.
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No.. not even then. The man is a walking piece of shit and is on track for a triple-digit number of felonies.
He’s never right. Not even when you think he is.
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Are you sure you want to adopt bratty Matty’s mindset like that?
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When we’re talking about Mango Unchained, it’s the only sane mindset. You do you.
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There’s nothing sane about dismissing accurate statement just because you don’t like the source.
Re: Re: Re:3 Even the most terrible people in existence can get stuff right occasionally/accidentally
So if he said that drinking battery acid was bad, how quickly would you be pouring yourself a refreshing glass of it to drink?
Taking anything he says with a warehouse’s worth of salt blocks would be and is entirely rational given his history of lying and/or being wrong on things.
Declaring that he can never, not even by accident or for the wrong reason get something right and that anything he says must be wrong is just the flip side of his cult’s mindset where everything he says is automatically correct.
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You're basically the only person who thinks this
Everyone else recognizes having the CCP control the information that a huge chunk of the US public sees is a huge problem. They’re already filtering certain topics (mostly chinese based, such as Free Hong Kong, but Palestine too) and they could easily turn that to US politics. ANd sure, their a huge privacy violator too, but I’m much more concerned about them controlling information.
It was bad enough when Twitter and FB viewpoint discriminated on their own (and they absolutely have), it was really bad when they did it per federal government request (which they absolutely did, you lying liar), it is entirely another level of awful if the CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY is allowed to do it.
This is going to happen. It HAS to happen. I don’t really care what Trump thinks about it, but it’s possibly he’s goading democrats into banning it, as most democrats just say “Opposite of whatever the bad orange man wants” (Y’know, like Biden did with the border.)
Evidence of clear topic manipulation on tiki tok:
https://time.com/6836078/tiktok-sold-banned-2024-election/
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Btw, this is just sad:
There’s lots and lots of potential buyers for Tik Tok, no need to bring your TDS into it. Get a grip. Sometimes you are just a really sad rumor monger, impeaching people on pure hearsay.
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It’s always great when you show you didn’t do the homework. Yes, there were lots of companies interested in buying TikTok, including Microsoft, but what people in Trump’s administration revealed was that Trump blocked the deal with Microsoft and insisted that TikTok had to go to one of his friends instead: Larry Ellison.
Mike didn’t make it up. That was widely reported.
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It’s not like Mike is the only one who makes stuff up. It’s still just stupid hearsay.
like MOST of “anonymous sources” during the Trump years wound up utter bunk.
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The fact that people realized Trump was a pussy-grabbing asshole really pisses in your oatmeal, don’t it Matty?
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You do know that Trump talked about this publicly, right? Or didn’t that fact fit in your tiny brain?
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What do you call the whack jobs that would rather destroy america than have something good passed while biden is in charge?
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Dude, you’re the only one here so deranged about Trump.
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Note that Mike’s asskissers on here have flagged your entirely correct post simply because you point out facts that Mikey fails to give credence to. This place is SUCH a Big Tech echo chamber sometimes. Of COURSE it is all about China State Control, and NOT about free speech. I hadn’t realized Mas was such a friend to Yass – until now. And obviously, my response will be hidden, because Mas is VERY good at Content Moderation, despite his Karen-ish cries about how it is not possible…
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Coming from a REGION where China would have complete control if it weren’t for that pesky US Pacific 7th Fleet…
The Chinese aren’t using anything new to assert dominance. They are using shit straight from the US/CIA playbook.
Blackmail, trade deals, etc…
Besides, if there was any ACTUAL concern over Chinese State Control, why not look into Epic Games? They have TWO Tencent execs on board and a Chinese company owns more than 20% of that company, plus, Tim Sweeney seems to listen to his Chinese counterparts…
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Probably because Epic Games is not a huge source of current news and events, smooth brain.
I don’t like that Blizzard took away some poor kids prize cuz he said “free Hong Kong!”, either (in fact, I deleted my battlenet account over it) but it wasn’t exactly a national security threat.
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Not being in the news does not explain away the fact that Tencent owns 41% of Epic Games.
It also does not explain why Sweeney lets Tencent elect and replace their 2 boardroom execs at any given time, for no reason whatsoever.
Nor does it explain why Sweeney keeps taking their advice.
Mind you, Google was investigated under the Trump “admininstration” for Project Dragonfly, insurrectionist scum.
I put my phone under my pillow at night and got to sleep with YouTube running and I heard that if this passes it will go beyond tiktok and allow the government to ban any website they dint like, first amendment brle Damned
Of course such a ban can be bypasses by using a VPN
People planning on traveling to America for work or tourism might want to set up.a VPN on your home computer before you go.
This will let you access tiktok or any other website that gets banned using the VPN on your home computer.
The only thing anyone will know is you are making an encrypted connection to your PC back home but they will never figure out what you are you up to
And it’s also good if you want to access content restricted to your home home country. For example, travelers from Britain can access iPlayer boucung off their home computer back in Britain and the bbc will never know. There is no law in either Britain or the United States that makes it a vrome
I do that on road trips to mexico, i bounce off my home computer to be able to listen to my YouTube or iHeartRadio playlists while I am driving down there.
I am breaking no laws in either Mexico or the United States when I do that. Using my home PC to bypass geo restrictions is not a crime in either country
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See, there’s your first problem.
Your other problem is frantically repeating this “it’s not against the law to use a VPN” shtick in every thread you appear in like it’s some “I refuse to speak without an attorney” gotcha clause.
Have you considered shutting the fuck up and not giving away your strategy to law enforcement, or allowing them a chance to find a loophole in your plan?
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I don’t read their comments as ‘giving away their strategy’ so much as them admitting that they break the law constantly and just can’t shut up about it, even if they’re not doing so in that particular way then in other ways.
Much like how if you ran across someone who never passed up a chance, no matter how off topic it was to talk about how it’s ‘not technically cheating’ on your significant other if you do X, Y or Z, it’s pretty much a given that they are absolutely cheating on their significant other someone who never passes up a chance to talk about how it’s totally not breaking the law to do A, B or C is probably not on the right side of it on a regular basis.
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Well, it’s definitely not cheating to look, but it is cheating to let your gaze linger. Just saying.
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Using your home PC (or any other device) to bypass a TPM creating geo restrictions is totally a crime in at least the US, dipshit.
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Stop it
Hey, Mas? Stop kissing the a$$ of Big Tech. It’s embarrassing and demeaning. If Tikkery disappeared tomorrow, no one would even remember it a year from now. Netscape redux.
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LGM got it right
Trump is NEVER right, Mikey.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/03/a-great-yass-and-the-hair-club-for-growth-how-donald-trump-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-tiktok-and-xi-jinping
If Trump thinks that a few kids will lose their minds if TikTok gets banned, he is not prepared for the number of old dumbfucks who will riot if their Facebooks and Truth Socials get taken away from them.
Boomers think it’s funny as hell to laugh at younger generations for having a wider spectrum of emotions and shorter attention spans, up until they get personally inconvenienced and embarrassed.
Well, makes a change from former President Fart being wrong for the wrong reasons.