This week could see the end of the TikTok saga, and if it does — regardless of what the ending is — I for one will be grateful if that happens. As faithful readers of The Torment Nexus (like you) will no doubt remember, I wrote in September that the crusade against TikTok was a “ridiculous waste of time” and I stand by that position. If anything, in fact, I feel it even more strongly now, given some of the rhetoric that we’ve seen published about the looming ban — including some of the commentary from the Supreme Court, who are supposed to be omniscient and wise in all things, but are really just people with flawed opinions and political concerns like everyone else (and some of those political concerns are more obvious than others, as we’ve recently learned about Justice Alito).
The Supremes are expected to rule this weekend on TikTok’s appeal of the law that was passed last April, which requires owner Bytedance to either sell the app to a non-Chinese owner or face a ban in the US. According to some reports based on the questions and commentary from the court, the justices appear to be leaning towards rejecting the appeal on national security grounds. Anonymous sources also told Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal that China was considering selling the app to Elon Musk, which would definitely be the fastest way to destroy TikTok \Bytedance said that if it loses its court challenge, it is planning to shut the app down completely rather than allow existing users to keep using it, which feels like a PR exercise. And Trump is trying to come up with ways to save it.
Setting aside all of this sturm und drang, let’s talk about what’s at the root of it: Are people seriously arguing that an app where people watch short video clips of girls dancing or cats riding Roomba vacuums is somehow a threat to the national security of the United States? Yes, they sure are. And is this argument just as ridiculous as it was the last time I wrote about it? Yes, it sure is.
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Continue reading “The TikTok saga has gotten even stupider if that’s possible”