In a swift vote with little debate, the House of Representatives voted 352-65 to force TikTok’s Chinese owners (ByteDance, a Chinese internet company) to either divest ownership of the company to US interests or face a complete ban from operations in the United States.
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, was quoted by NBC as stating:
“Communist China is America’s largest geopolitical foe and is using technology to actively undermine America’s economy and security,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement after the vote, warning that TikTok could be used to access American data and spread “harmful” information.
“Today’s bipartisan vote demonstrates Congress’ opposition to Communist China’s attempts to spy on and manipulate Americans, and signals our resolve to deter our enemies.”
The argument against TikTok has its origin with the US Intelligence Community (IC). The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report, called the Annual Threat Assessment, the day before the vote that stated, “TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022.” CNN quoted a “senior intelligence official” on background who said, “the intelligence community can’t rule out that China would use TikTok to try to influence the 2024 US elections, but the IC has no indication that they intend to do so.”
Read: Weller: Hormone Blockers Banned For Children In England
So, the case against TikTok made by the IC and Congress boils down to the following: ByteDance (TikTok’s parent) has ties to the Chinese Communist Party and thus is a threat to the United States. TikTok has access to all of the users data which could be shared with the CCP, TikTok could attempt to spread misinformation, disinformation or the Speaker’s new euphemism “harmful” information in an attempt to influence our elections.
That all sounds very familiar.
This is the same playbook used to demonize both the Trump administration and objectors to the COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates. Similar actions were taken by our IC to further alienate Russia from the global community vis a vis the RussiaGate hoax and the ensuing eight years of controversy.
We now know that despite the constant insistence of the intelligence community, Big Media, and many politicians, the CIA cooked the intelligence to make a false conclusion that Russia wanted Donald Trump to win in 2016; we also now know that elements of the IC, including former FBI and CIA employees, infiltrated our own social media companies in an attempt to censor and control information.
We also now know that these same elements of the IC developed multiple bureaucracies to force Twitter (now X), Facebook and others to censor content they labeled mis- or dis- information, as if this were ever something the government of a free society should be involved in. A case is in the Supreme Court now to address these concerns – Missouri v. Biden – and a lower court has already granted injunctive relief for the Plaintiffs, ordering the government to discontinue these massive censorship programs while the case is decided.
Read: Florida Rep. Greg Steube Slams House TikTok Bill, Arguing “It’s About Political Power”
So it would be wise to ask our Intelligence Community, based upon their immoral and unconstitutional record over the past ten years, to make their case to the American people. They’ve done no such thing.
In fact the whole case against TikTok smells like a red herring, the motives of our IC must be challenged. Given the track record it is much more likely that they wish to have TikTok in US ownership so that the IC (including the FBI and DoJ) will have much more power to control the information shared on the platform, as they’ve done in the past with every American social media company.
Further, the case has no merit. Let’s take the stated reasons to ban TikTok, one by one:
Data
The first argument is that TikTok collects a massive amount of data from its users, and could be sharing this data with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This is a specious argument. First, every social media company, and every app and internet site you use or visit collects this data. The data is massive, and it’s for sale. The CCP, were it not to have access through TikTok can simply purchase this data from Facebook or a myriad of other companies and third parties. If you are willing to give this data away to internet companies as we all are, and it’s available to be bought by anyone, how does banning TikTok serve any interest? It doesn’t.
Spreading Mis-, Dis- or “Harmful” Information
Haven’t we exhausted this argument? Who among us wants the US government deciding what I can or can’t read, watch or post? Give me all of it and let me decide. This is foundational to a free society and a fundamental human right. Without it, all other rights are in serious jeopardy. As they say, the First Amendment is first for a reason.
Read: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio Urges Senate Action Following House TikTok Vote
Interfering with Our Elections
Eight words: New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Our IC was involved in suppressing a highly damaging story just a few days before the 2020 election. Any election interference by any foreign adversary pales in comparison – by at least three orders of magnitude – to this egregious election interference. The story was suppressed and 51 intelligence “leaders” lied to the American people to impact the election.
It defies comprehension to think that our IC would perpetrate such a fraud on the American electorate but should be entrusted to fight such a thing abroad. They are not interested in protecting the American people; they are interested in controlling the information seen by the American people.
The American IC and Congress have identified no victims of TikTok. They have identified no crimes being committed by TikTok. They have provided no evidence of any wrongdoing by TikTok. Simply put, their case has zero merit.
Shall our government nonetheless be allowed to steal a valuable company from its owners against their will, without crime, reason nor due process? What will that mean for business owners? How long will it take before this power is expanded to mean the government can take any business they please?
This is another very large step on the road to totalitarianism; we must stop it.
Justin Weller is the Founder and Editor of The Country, and host of the podcast The Country with Justin Weller. Prior, he was a general manager and sales leader in startup and Big Tech firms, interned on Capitol Hill, and was a Contributing Editor at mxdwn.com. This piece is republished from The Country
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Tampa Free Press.
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