Discourse Power X Following the Yuan: Why Won't the U.S. Ban TikTok?
Discourse Power X Following the Yuan: Why Won't the U.S. Ban TikTok?
There are many reasons to ban TikTok, and national security concern tops the list. But the word has become synonymous with an omnipotent mandate to proceed with everything and anything
Back in January 2023, I had the pleasure of co-authoring with the fabulous
on her substack Following the Yuan. We dived into the political imperative and advantages of TikTok-bashing, analyzed a recent academic report from the Georgia Institute of Technology on TikTok's national security challenges, and "girlspained" about Marco Rubio.
Image source: AI art via Pixabay and NightCafe studio
Our piece was titled “Why Won't the U.S. Ban TikTok”? There are many reasons to ban the app, and national security concern tops the list. The words "National security" have become synonymous with an omnipotent mandate to proceed with everything and anything that would ensure the protection of it. Ironically, as Yaling and I argue in the piece, the Rubios are dreaming of a scenario that could only happen in China, where the one-party central government *could* call off things in an outright ban.
Suppose we ignore the fact that there are more than 100 million TikTok users (now 150 million since then) in the U.S. (India banned TikTok where there were twice as many users) and that there is an existing ecosystem of businesses and content creators on TikTok. In that case, a ban will likely weaken the U.S.' reputation as a place where the constitutional system *still kinda* works and market-driven principles triumph most often than not.
What's at stake here is the potential downside risk of signaling the unraveling of confidence in building international companies in the U.S. The benefits of an open and unrestricted market are at odds with the political bantering and resulting consideration of banning TikTok by executive order.
Like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, TikTok's algorithms can amplify worrisome trends. The long list of Scandals about its toxic work culture, public relation snafu, and infringement of data privacy by employees in recent months also calls into question the sanctity of its corporate governance.
What will go down will be anyone's guess, but it will surely be an uphill battle from here. Read the entire piece below.
