Why TikTok SHOULD Be Banned

Here's why TikTok should be banned worldwide.

INTRO

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This weekend, the U.S. government is set to ban TikTok from being available on app stores across the country thanks to a bill that passed the House with 352 representatives in favor to 65 opposed. Keep in mind, our government can't even agree on sending money to the victims of the California forest fires so that alone should tell you this is probably a bigger deal than you think it is.

And while many people find this to be a ban on their free speech, it's really something that many of us have been wanting for a long time now because of the threats it poses to everyone, not just its users.

Now, before I dive into this too much, I want to preface this and say: yes, Americans do have a right to freedom of speech but that doesn't mean you can say whatever you want to. For example, if you yelled fire in a crowded theater, you'd technically have the right to yell it. But freedom of speech is much different than freedom from consequence. You'd be charged and likely convicted of disorderly conduct and if anyone got hurt trying to escape a building where there was no fire, you'd be held personally liable for any damages to the building or any person.

So, you can say whatever you like in any situation but that doesn't mean you'd never face consequences for it. And that's exactly what's happening to TikTok. Technically, they should be allowed to have a product in existence, but that doesn't mean their actions don't have consequences that the government needs to protect its citizens from.

The FDA routinely has to stop medications or food products that might harm consumers before they go to the market. The FCC regulates that manufacturers cannot use certain frequencies that would make products interfere with emergency services radios. The FTC blocks companies from buying each other to create monopolies and control pricing. So, the federal government has a long history of blocking bad things from happening that would harm its citizens and TikTok is no different.

There are three massive reasons TikTok should, in my opinion, be banned from any app store worldwide along with any other replacement that comes our way. First is of course its alleged threat to national security. Second is its unique ability to influence its users with propaganda more than any other social media app. And third is because it already breaks many laws so it has no moral high ground to stand on.

Let's start with the allegations from the FBI and FCC who have investigated the app, its algorithm, and data for years now. They warned congress of the potential threats TikTok's parent company, ByteDance has on users and congress members have not even shared everything they learned in that report because if it was leaked, that info would be a threat to our national security too.

But to truly understand this, we have to go back to 2017 when a law was put in place by the Chinese government which required any company in their country, including ByteDance to provide a back door to any personal data used by the company. This means, the Chinese government has access to any data ever used by TikTok and they can use it without ByteDance's permission, without providing a reason, and for whatever they want to use it for.

ByteDance might say the Chinese government never asked for any data yet but let's be honest, the back door is wide open so would they really know themselves if it happened?

By the way, I'm not just talking about anything you searched for or anything on your profile. The Chinese government couldn't care less that you searched for cat videos. But if you liked a video of a democrat or republican candidate. If you took too long to scroll past a video of Ukraine fighting Russia. Or if you searched for videos about Taiwan being its own country, the Chinese government would have a lot of interest in that data.

We've heard hundreds of users say things like "But I found a good cooking tutorial on TikTok" and that's great but you can find that on other apps much easier and now the Chinese government knows you like to cook. And you could, if needed, cook for the U.S. military if they were to...let's say start a war with the U.S. in the next couple years as the U.S. Department of Defense has been warning us of and preparing us for.

I'm not saying one search or like would tell them everything they need to know about you or the United States. But when you consider the amount of data they're collecting every second, it's terrifying. They can collect much more data, a million times quicker compared to YouTube, Google, Facebook, or anyone else because you're watching shorter videos on their app and that means tons more data for them much faster. TikTok uses on average, about 1 GB of data per hour which is a lot considering you're watching short videos.

As someone who's worked in video production nearly my whole life, I can tell you it doesn't take 1 GB of data to stream data in only one direction...but it could take that much if you're streaming in both directions. Every time you're clicking on something, commenting, liking, every time you watch a video to the end or scroll past it quickly, there's data being transferred back to a server at ByteDance.

But all social media companies do this. You might have noticed getting targeted Facebook ads for something you never searched for but only talked about with someone in private while your phone was in your pocket. That's because when the app is free, you are the product that Facebook, Bluesky, and even YouTube are selling to advertisers. The more data they have on you, the better they can target those ads and the more likely you are to buy that advertiser's products.

Unlike other social media apps that just get info on what you click on and search for, ByteDance admitted in their own privacy policy, they collect biometric info including faceprints and voiceprints of you along with your IP address and more. That includes tracking you even when you're not using the app. If you have the app on your phone, it's tracking you 24/7.

If you noticed your battery draining faster than normal ever since you downloaded TikTok, that might be why because according to their own privacy policy, it seemingly uses a lot of data even when you don't have the app open.

With ByteDance or any company based in China, the government has a back door to all of that data too. And while users can express how amazing it is that TikTok can find videos you'd be interested in watching within a few minutes of being on the app, that immediate personalization is scary. Some users have described it as the app knowing them better than they know themselves. And look, it's funny when the app predicts your habits or hobbies but that data can also be used in malicious ways by the Chinese government.

So, why not ban all social media apps then? Well, many companies in the U.S. have been very outspoken in their fight against sharing data with the U.S. government or any other governments. Google and YouTube say, "We remain committed to protecting our users against any improper demands for their personal information and we will continue to oppose demands that are overly broad or otherwise legally objectionable."

So, there's currently no back door into YouTube, Google, or many other companies. But TikTok is legally required to have a back door wide open to China at all times.

The second and I would argue more important reason TikTok should be banned is because it's almost perfect for spreading propaganda. No one does it better than TikTok and that's for a reason.

With the back door wide open, their government can use that data however they see fit. And remember, the Communist Party of China has an entire department called the Publicity Department of the Central Committee. No one knows how many people work in this propaganda-creation department but it's certainly more than a few.

For decades, this division has been tasked with making Americans doubt and spread fear about our own government. And with China, it's never been straight forward. They'll never make a video telling you to hate a president but they will share tiny pieces over the course of years and let you put those pieces together to solve the puzzle.

They've been doing it for generations in a lot of forms, not just on social media. For example, a lot of the anti-vaccine rhetoric we're hearing nowadays came directly from Chinese propaganda thanks to their years of hard work spreading tiny bits here and there. China has always fought wars by playing the extremely long game, mostly through propaganda that historically looked a lot like TikTok.

For an example of this on TikTok though, I really liked a few videos from Representative Jeff Jackson who tried pulling back the curtain on the government in his videos and showed us how laws really get passed. But the more I liked his videos, the more I seemed to get videos from Trump and others saying how terrible the government is.

Any story of a shooting, car driving through a crowd, wildfires, or any bad news didn't really make its way to my feed until there were videos by commentators bad-mouthing the U.S. government's response to the crisis.

For the record, I find myself somewhere in the middle on politics with each party having some good ideas on different issues but the more I uploaded LGBTQ content for my own channel, the more I got purely democrat videos ripping down republican policies on finances, the border, and more - most of which had nothing to do with republican's terrible stance on gay rights.

We are all witnesses to this propaganda in action. When Hamas invaded Israel, slaughtered thousands of men, women, and children, and took 251 children, women, and elderly people hostage, Facebook and YouTube were covering it all over. But on TikTok, all I saw were videos from Hamas and Iran's propaganda machine claiming they were the victims.

Keep in mind, 39% of 18 to 29 year-olds get their news from TikTok so that propaganda is all they saw. Suddenly, college campuses were filled with students protesting which they have a right to do and some destroying everything they could find which they don’t have a right to do. Again, not freedom from consequence. But this seemed to derail the democratic party, not because of their stance on the issue but because none of us could really understand why people were upset with Democrats on this.

If anyone bothered to ask Trump his stance, or saw it on TikTok, they'd know he wanted to carpet bomb Hamas which is the exact thing these voters wanted to prevent Israel from doing. But all they saw on TikTok was Kamala Harris having a two-state solution and they didn't agree with it. They didn’t know Trump had any policy on it so many of them voted for Trump instead.

Now that Trump was elected, he and his secretary of defense have said they are happy to carpet bomb and kill every last member of Hamas. Then, days before Trump is set to take office, Hamas is suddenly willing to come to the table and negotiate a ceasefire. Weird. It's almost like they're scared of Trump but democrats voted for Trump in record numbers because a majority of them were fed this lie that Kamala's policy was worse. China on the other hand loves chaos in the U.S. and a lot of that started on TikTok.

To this day, we still get comments from people convinced by TikTok videos that Trump is an ally of gay rights even though he's one of the country's worst homophobic presidents of all time. But couple the dopamine levels users get from scrolling through short-form videos and an algorithm as powerful as TikTok's and it's easy to convince anyone of anything.

You might get videos from democrats or republicans but chances are, the more you watch, the more you'll see tiny bits and pieces tearing down the other side. And pretty soon, people that would normally be independent and voting for policies, not parties, are now voting for parties, not policies. That's why our politicians nowadays care less about getting things done which they promised us and care more about what letter is behind their name on the ballot. And that's thanks to impressive propaganda efforts and terrifyingly powerful algorithms.

Hosts like John Oliver on Last Week Tonight argue that he doesn't have TikTok on his phone because he doesn't trust it, but we shouldn't ban something because of a potential threat at our doorstep. But I would argue the threat is already in our house and TikTok has already, arguably broken many U.S. laws.

TikTok's parent company wants to stand behind free speech and say they should be allowed to operate but if you're not playing by ALL of the rules, you're a hypocrite for claiming to be a victim of one of them.

For many years, TikTok has allowed their users to upload anything and everything to their platform. You can see entire movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, or many other forms of media on TikTok without paying a penny to the original creators.

If you want to use a copyrighted song in your video - no problem on TikTok but YouTube, Facebook, and every other app that has to comply with international laws won't let you use copyrighted songs without paying for it first. Because of this, YouTube, Facebook, and other apps are at a significant disadvantage and it could be argued this is against FTC fair business practices.

We've had our content reuploaded hundreds of times on TikTok and each time, we had to fight incredibly hard to prove we own our own copyrighted material. Even then, sometimes TikTok says we don't own our own content even though we can prove that we recorded it.

You might argue a large studio doesn't need that penny or two from you watching their movie in 20 parts on your For You Page but those add up. And smaller creators do need that money to survive. No matter what, it's theft from the original creator and it's against the law. There's a reason copyright protection exists in every country on earth besides one...China. It's the only country that does not uphold U.S. copyrights, patents, or trademarks. They somehow think they are above the laws of the world.

And while yes, we have gotten infringing content taken down from TikTok, it was only after hours of work each time it happened and WE had to find the re-upload in the first place. For context, YouTube which adheres to international law, uses an automatic AI system and notifies us if any portion of any of our content is re-uploaded or used. We can then submit a copyright takedown in seconds, not hours.

TikTok is a lawless wasteland of reuploaded videos, music, and content stolen from original creators around the world. I would argue it's not a matter of WHAT IF ByteDance breaks the law in the future or WHAT IF they spy on us? But rather, it's a matter of stopping them from breaking our laws currently.

And look, I never thought I would agree with Donald Trump on anything. Sure, he wants TikTok to survive now just because he got billions of views, but he was originally right on one thing, TikTok should be banned. Dozens of other countries have already banned it from Afghanistan, Canada, UK, Denmark, France, Norway, Latvia, Iran, India, Taiwan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Somalia, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Pakistan, Napal, Indonesia, Estonia, and oh yeah - China.

Yes, the country saying America should have free speech and allow TikTok to exist is also the same country which banned the exact same app from their own citizens and also bans free speech entirely. Instead, China has their own version of TikTok where they ban users from searching for news like Tiananmen Square or anything else that might make their government look bad. The separation also helps them separate data from outside of China so Chinese citizens using the app won't skew the data. But my question is, why should we allow a Chinese app to be used that China bans its own citizens from using?

You can make the argument that this is about free speech but that's not how free speech works. TikTok is basically like a spy that came to the United States. It watches you 24/7, you tell it all about your personal life, and even invite that spy into your home to witness every private conversation you have. You take that spy with you on every trip to the grocery store and every day to work.

Perhaps you're a banker and you hear account numbers all day. Perhaps you're a construction worker and you hear details of how they're building a bridge or government building. Or perhaps you're in the military and you're practicing defense strategies. But you invite that spy in your pocket to go with you everywhere you go and it hears everything you do. And now that spy goes back to their home country in a matter of mili-seconds and shares all of that intel with your enemy.

Now they know where you live, every relationship you have, what foods you purchase, account numbers of every customer you handled, where our bridges and buildings are the weakest, and how the U.S. plans to defend ourselves from invaders. All because TikTok gave a back door to your enemy.

Now, in real life, spies are put in prison and often times punished with the death penalty for espionage. All America asked ByteDance to do was sell the controlling interest of their company to anyone else or move their headquarters anywhere else in the world. But they refused this simple request which should ring alarm bells for their true motives.

TikTok is still trying to get away with it because its users love watching copyrighted videos, movies, music, and the occasional news story of how terrible America is. Somehow it has the victims of that espionage fighting on its behalf.

The most chilling part is that it's not over even when TikTok hopefully gets banned. With the ban days away, Americans are now turning to RedNote, another app started in the wake of this with the same ties to China. In my opinion, it looks like the same people are upset their tactic didn't work to keep spying on us and breaking our laws so now they created another app to do the same thing because they found a loophole in the law banning only TikTok.

And you can argue all you want to how banning one app is a threat to free speech but how come the replacement they came up with called RedNote, is banning free speech too? If they're all about free speech, how come they're the ones banning it? Because, when our friends tried to get on RedNote, they were banned from the entire platform for even mentioning anything related to them being LGBTQ, something that is also banned in China.

So, it seems like the whole "free speech" hill TikTok wants to hopefully die on, isn't really all that important to its real owners, or should I say backdoor users...which may be the gayest thing I've said all week. That was just a way to get us Americans to fight on its behalf against our own government. And that's a great example of how well propaganda works on TikTok because they used it against Americans and anyone claiming that banning TikTok is a ban on free speech, continues to fall for that propaganda to this day. In fact, I would argue, the more someone fights to keep TikTok, the more evidence we have to show why it should be banned.