Tiktok bans
Congress would gladly allow the CCP to install cameras in every American toilet if that somehow benefitted the donor class. They not care about your privacy or wellbeing.
I’m not going to dignify the assertion that the United States congress cares so deeply about the privacy of American citizens they have to ban a social media platform to protect us. Mass, consistent surveillance is an untouchable political reality that we will never be rid of. House Republicans claiming to care about privacy is like Jeffrey Dahmer appearing in an ad for PETA.
But the even more stupefying claim is that TikTok is bad because it’s owned by Scary Foreigners who might poison the minds of America’s youth with their terrifying Chinese magic. Where the hell did this come from?
I’m not going to say there’s no logic to a position of complete media isolationism. I don’t agree with it, and it runs counter to every prevailing ideological trend within left-liberalism for the past half century, but I can see where its advocates are coming from. There’s an argument there, if nothing else.
But… why now? Why just this one platform? Fox News was founded and run by an Australian psychopath. Twitter was majority owned by Saudis for about a decade and is now owned and operated by a South African. Google was co-founded by a Russian man. The opinions of Israeli genocide freaks matter far more to nearly every member of our government than the concerns of this country’s own citizens. Etc, etc.
You get the drift: American media and politics are heavily influenced by foreign nationals, and the bipartisan consensus for decades has been that this is at worst tolerable or at best something so pure and good and valid only a nazi would complain about it.