You probably heard about the TikTok bill working its way through Congress today because the House passed it on to the Senate, where it's likely to pass on to Joe Biden's desk. Biden has already said he would sign it into law.
I hesitate to use the word ban, because that's technically not what Congress is doing. Technically. Their problem is that ByteDance, who owns the company, is located in China, and we all know that talking shit about China gets politicians' dicks hard. Their concern is that the Chinese government might try to force the company to surrender its American users' data. (What about the rest of the world's data? Ah, fuck 'em, right?) What the bill actually says is, in order to continue operating in the US, ByteDance must sell TikTok to someone we're *not* enemies with. Either that, or they can kiss the US market goodbye.
So it's not a ban. It's a my-way-or-the-highway suggestion. It's altogether possible that ByteDance will eat the loss and move on because the US is only number three when it comes to population by country in the world. We're not even at half a million, and China and India have about 1.4M each. Granted, they're not all TikTok users, but that's a pretty wide market to take a bite out of. That's still not taking into account the populations of the other 231 countries. I saw a stat that says there's 172M TikTok users in the US. It would be painful to move on without us, but it's doable.
So it's possible it could turn into a ban, and all those politicians who voted for it will have their kids at their throats. I'm sure they live there on those various and sundry throats already, but I'm a little eager to see how that unfolds. Because I actually agree. TikTok should be held accountable, but not for the reasons Congress thinks.
Because ANY AND ALL corporate social media platforms do not give a single solitary fuck about their users' data. They view it as their job to take as much as possible from the users, not to help them. Helping people is detrimental to a company's bottom line. Social media is a huge fucking scam, and none of our data is safe.
If you doubt me, try turning down the terms and conditions when you sign up for a site. Have you ever read the terms and conditions? I'll bet you haven't, and if you did you wouldn't be so fast to sign away the rights to your data. But let's say you wanted to read the whole fucking thing. How long would it take?
That long. Whoo-boy, that Microsoft one is an absolute killer. These terms are designed that way to discourage you from reading it. Why spend the time when it's just easier to click on YES?
And don't get me wrong. I'm with you all, too. I signed my data away, as well, because there were more advantages to having, say, a Facebook page than there were disadvantages. But the longer I think about it, the less I'm comfortable with that.
I read a story today about how a bunch of people got scammed by a chef on Facebook. The problem is, it wasn't him. It was his profile, but someone hacked him, and when he tried getting his page back Facebook was absolutely no help. Such complaints apparently fall down into a black hole and are never seen again. No, really!
Like the guy in that story, most people who are hacked out of their profiles are so frustrated they give up and leave social media altogether. I understand that, but how comfortable are you knowing that a scammer now controls your Facebook page and has access not only to all your pictures, but also to those DMs you send?
You've known me a while, so I'm sure you know what my next step is. That's right, social media isn't special. ALL corporations do this. If you're unfamiliar with Cory Doctorow's concept of "enshittification," it goes like this. Companies are super helpful to their users while they're building their audience. Then they fuck over their users in favor of advertisers. The final step is when they fuck over the advertisers in favor of their own products. Since we're using Facebook as an example, you can very easily track their enshittification. The moment Meta reared its head was when it entered the third stage. For some reason, though, Facebook has not collapsed like so many others before it. But as Doctorow is fond of quoting, "Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." Cheerful thought. Seems obvious, but think about it for a moment. What would you do if tomorrow Coca-Cola went out of business? Doesn't seem possible, does it? But one day Coke will be gone. It's a fact. We might not be around for that day, but it will come.
Long story short (too late) I don't think Congress is going far enough. TikTok is doing to its American users exactly what EVERY FUCKING SOCIAL MEDIA SITE DOES TO ITS AMERICAN USERS. All of them. No exceptions. So why go after just TikTok? Because they're Chinese and thus are our enemies?
Maybe we're getting a glimpse into the mind of Americanus politicianis, one of the most terrible species on the planet. The message I'm getting from them is, Chinese companies can't fuck with American users because, dammit, that's our job. We can't be outsourcing the abuse of American consumers to foreign nations. American companies might starve to death, and that's unthinkable.
Apply this bill to all corporations doing business in America, you fucking cowards.
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