Now that the bill has passed banning TicTok, you might want to check it out. You've only got nine months or so.
The clock is ticking.
There really may be nothing to worry about. If it lasts longer than nine months that means it probably won't be banned. Make sense?
You're right. It makes about as much sense as worrying a foreign government might demand your data from one social media platform while not worrying that all the other social media platforms sell your data to the highest bidder already.
If the company that owns TicTok, ByteDance, sells the app to a non-Chinese company in the next nine to twelve months, there will be no ban. Of course, that would require ByteDance being willing to sell, the Chinese government allowing a sale, and a company out there with about $50 billion to spare. That's a lowball.
So while we're waiting for that not to happen, TicTok is flying off the shelves of the Apple and Microsoft and Google app stores. It's all the little elves in the Chinese app factory can do to keep up with demand but keep up is what they do.
This ban doesn't mean nobody will have it. No one's coming to take your phone. It'll just mean the previously mentioned app stores won't stock it. It'll still be out there around the world, just not downloadable in the United States. Unless you have a good vpn set up or link to the dark web, that is.
Unlike my kids, I have not downloaded TicTok. I'm not against it. I'm just not interested in scrolling videos on my phone screen, no matter how incredible they may be. I'm really not interested in doing anything on my phone that isn't talking or texting so I probably won't load it up.
But that decision has nothing to do with the link to China. Whether ByteDance shares my activity with the Chinese Communist Party isn't what's concerning. The fact all social media platforms monetize and weaponize our personal data without our explicit consent from the beginning without safeguards is the problem.
If our legislative bodies were as concerned with what we know Russia has done through social media in the United States as they are that China might get access to our data, there would be bans on Facebook, Youtube and X until they were placed under the control of companies that wouldn't turn the algorithms over to Vladimir Putin.
Seems like I might be missing one on that. Ain't it the Truth?
Whatever way this TikTok ban goes, it's hard to get up in arms on something with such a wide window. Peking could be getting an awful lot of information over the next nine months. What if in nine months they decided none of it was worth having?
Does knowing we like to watch endless videos of ourselves dancing as if no one is watching really have that much value?
I don't think so either.