It’s not “censorship” to ban a product like TikTok any more than it’s censorship to ban any other product. TikTok had the opportunity to sell to an American company (the same way all products on the Chinese market are forced to go through Chinese companies) and, for reasons that only they can explain, they chose not to do that. They would have made billions of dollars selling, but perhaps money isn’t their primary concern…
At any rate, we absolutely need to have a separate conversation about all social media in terms of privacy and data rights (though it’ll never happen under Republicans), but that doesn’t mean TikTok is free to continue being a completely opaque and unaccountable backdoor to the Chinese government.
It’s not “censorship” to ban a product like TikTok any more than it’s censorship to ban any other product. TikTok had the opportunity to sell to an American company (the same way all products on the Chinese market are forced to go through Chinese companies) and, for reasons that only they can explain, they chose not to do that. They would have made billions of dollars selling, but perhaps money isn’t their primary concern…
At any rate, we absolutely need to have a separate conversation about all social media in terms of privacy and data rights (though it’ll never happen under Republicans), but that doesn’t mean TikTok is free to continue being a completely opaque and unaccountable backdoor to the Chinese government.