US vs. TikTok Round 2
Republican opposition or not, the recent TikTok bill should be passed.
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The War on TikTok
Almost a year to the date, I wrote about why the United States should ban the popular social media app TikTok (you can read that piece here). In an effort not to repeat myself, here is a good summary quotation from that piece explaining why the app should be banned:
Unlike the Big Tech companies of Silicon Valley, TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. Like all other companies in China, this means that the Chinese Communist Party has the right to demand access to any and everything belonging to ByteDance including user data. This is true no matter what language the CCP or ByteDance uses to try and create separation between the two entities. What belongs to ByteDance also belongs to the CCP.
Why does it matter that China has access to Americans’ dance videos though? Klon Kitchen, a National Security expert, explains the significance:
“Why would China want my data? So what if they have my social media videos—I don’t care if they see me flossing.” This is when I launch into my spiel about how it’s about more than just one person’s data, it’s about the comprehensive insights a nation like China can derive when it’s getting troves of personal information from hundreds of millions of Americans. I then typically use my go-to metaphor, where I ask the person to imagine waking up to a news story reporting China has secretly deployed 100 million sensors around the United States and has been clandestinely collecting our personal contacts, photos, GPS locations, online purchasing and viewing habits, and even our keyboard swipes and patterns. I tell them this would obviously cause an uproar and then, feeling very pleased with myself, I lower the boom by telling them this is exactly what is happening every day with the more than 130 million American users of TikTok.
As Kitchen mentions, a single user’s data does not have much usefulness in and of itself. It is the immense amount of data on millions of Americans amalgamated into an in-depth portrait of their behaviors, attitudes, feelings, ideas, etc. that makes TikTok so valuable to the CCP and so dangerous for the United States. TikTok is more intrusive and more prominent than any Chinese spy balloon. This is why the White House has already banned the app on all Federal Agency devices.
This past week, the effort to ban TikTok escalated when the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 50-0 to advance legislation that would force the Chinese owner of TikTok, ByteDance, to divest its ownership of the app within 165 days.
In anticipation of this vote, TikTok initiated a pressure campaign on the Representatives by sending out a notice to TikTok users to call their Representative asking that they vote against the bill claiming it was a “total ban” on the app. According to reports, the phones of many Representatives were flooded with calls, many from teenagers to the point where some Representatives had to turn off their phones.
This brazen pressure campaign infuriated many Representatives leading to the unanimous vote to push through the bill. Now, the bill will go to the House floor for the whole House of Representatives to vote on sometime this week.
It will probably not come as a surprise that I am greatly in favor of this bill and want it to pass.
Republican Opposition
To my chagrin, some Republican politicians have come out in opposition to the bill starting with the kingpin of the Republican Party himself: Donald Trump.
Donald Trump opposes forcing ByteDance to divest TikTok, not for concerns regarding possible encroachment on liberty, but simply because he does not like Facebook and does not want them to make more money.
This is, to put it bluntly, quite stupid. Trump’s petty beef with Facebook is no justification for continuing to give the Chinese Communist Party access to the data of millions of Americans. But, once again, Donald Trump is more concerned with Donald Trump than the good of the country.
Readers will also be shocked to learn that Vivek Ramaswamy came out in support of Donald Trump’s position opposing the bill. In his typical sounding smart without saying anything of substance fashion, Ramaswamy claims that “the use and provision of US user data potentially to the Chinese Communist Party… is a major concern” BUT “it isn’t limited to just TikTok or even Chinese-owned companies in the US.” In other words, the problem of American data to the CCP extends beyond just TikTok to even American-owned companies that do business in China.
Well, that’s concerning, right? What’s Ramaswamy’s solution to this even larger problem than just TikTok? Answer: to get TikTok and try and win the 2024 election. If that doesn’t make sense to you as a solution, then it’s probably just because you’re not considering the “why” as Ramaswamy claims. Or, you just aren’t as smart as him.
It may seem jarring that Trump and Ramaswamy are opposed to the bill that forces ByteDance to divest TikTok considering both have expressed support for banning TikTok in the past. Trump, in 2020, signed an executive order that banned TikTok because of the national security concerns associated with the app (this was later rescinded by the Biden administration).
Ramaswamy, on the other hand, tweeted this just last year:
Is there something in this bill that is more concerning than is letting on?
No. In fact, this bill is even more narrowly tailored than the outright bans proposed in the past because it does not actually ban TikTok but simply forces ByteDance to divest it to another non-CCP-owned company. Under this bill, TikTok could continue to operate in the US just under new ownership.
So, why the sudden reversal from Ramaswamy and Trump? Well, it turns out that multibillionaire donor Jeff Yass, who also just so happens to own a 15% stake in TikTok, met with Trump a week before his reversal. That same donor just so happened to give millions of dollars to Ramaswamy’s campaign over the few months between his above tweet and when he “changed his mind on TikTok” and created an account for his campaign. I’m sure these are just a couple of coincidences though because Trump and Ramaswamy promised to “drain the swamp” and not participate in it.
I’m not a person who believes that large money donors and lobbyists control all of our politics and politicians. When a Republican politician has a well-thought-out belief that the United States should drill more oil, I don’t think it’s because he has a bunch of big oil companies donated to him. Typically, I assume big oil companies are donating to him because of his already-held position.
Similarly, I don’t think Democratic politicians support abortion because groups like Planned Parenthood donated to them. Rather, Planned Parenthood donates to Democratic politicians who already hold their position on abortion.
However, my skepticism is raised when politicians all of a sudden change their position following a large donation or meeting with a large donor such is the case with Trump and Ramaswamy.
Fall in Line
Trump’s flip-flop on TikTok is of utmost importance considering he is now the Republican Presidential nominee (again). This means that what he says matters in shaping what is acceptable to believe as a Republican and what is not acceptable to say. When he speaks, the rest of the Republican Party falls in line in obedience.
Any willingness to disagree with Trump means immediate ostracization from the MAGA-dominated party, just see Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Liz Cheney, Mike Pence, Bill Barr, Mitt Romney, et al. as evidence of that reality. This means that the standard and only acceptable Republican stance is likely to become one of opposition to this bill regardless of the merits of the bill. You can already see this with MAGA favorites Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, and Kellyanne Conway, advocating against the bill.
Whether it ends up being the majority position within the Republican Party or not, this is an important bill for America’s national security against the Chinese Communist Party.
God Bless,
Hunter Burnett