Red scared: U.S. leaders’ move to ban TikTok is exactly what you’d expect from your grandparents

In this photo illustration, the TikTok app is displayed on an Apple iPhone on Aug. 7, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer | Getty Images)

Let’s be real: Most of the people in Congress shouldn’t attempt any sort of TikTok challenge because of the very real risk of breaking a hip or other bones.

That’s what happens when you have AARP-eligible leaders trying to dictate the terms of social media.

Funny how when the various “TikTok challenges,” from ingesting Tide Pods to eating cinnamon by the spoonful, happened no one seemed to pay it much mind. But the upsetting idea that Chinese communists may be spying on us is reason enough for the federal government (and the state) to argue in favor of censorship.

I am completely underwhelmed by Congress’ fretting about communists and believe what the government has lacked in specifics, it has more than made up for in innuendo and scare tactics.

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is owned by a Chinese corporation. Depending on what sources you read, there’s concern that the company has ties to the central Chinese government, which is communist in name, brutal in practice.

Evidence that China is siphoning information from the social media giant is fuzzy. It appears the greater threat to Americans is that a social media platform has risen to power that is beyond the reach and control of the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, our leaders — in both parties — have told us that behind closed doors and in classified briefings, they’ve learned how China may be spying on us. The speculation is far-reaching but the facts are few. But, you know, just trust them — the same people whose approval ratings hover somewhere slightly below 20% currently.

We shouldn’t be so fast to accept whatever politicians hear behind closed doors. If the threat to American democracy from TikTok is so grave, then American politicians should be making a more compelling public argument, buttressed by details and examples — something they’ve failed to do miserably.

Democrats as well as Republicans seem all too willing to either force a sale of the social media giant or ban it, all because of the paternalistic notion that they’re protecting us. This from a government that can’t pass a budget on time, and can’t seem to agree that the safest election in the history of the country wasn’t stolen.

And now we’re supposed to trust it that TikTok is some kind of giant spy balloon in our pocket?

R-i-i-iii-ii-i-ght.

This is an outdated worry: A bunch of senior citizens worrying about communism. Sounds like the same kind of fears Congress had 60 or 70 years ago. Keep in mind that Congress just re-authorized part of a program that allows the federal government to spy on its citizens.

I’m sorry, but our state and federal leaders are now worried about social media tracking us? Where was the concern, say, 20 years ago when it became a reality?

If there’s every been a situation that’s cried out to use the phrase, “Hey, Boomer,” it’s this one.

For a second, let’s flatter ourselves and assume the Chinese have an interest in what individual Americans are doing, instead of being similarly busy trying to figure out what 1.4 billion of their own people are doing.

Why?

What will they learn?

That we’re average dancers? Will they learn that I had a burger for lunch and it was just OK? Or will they think, “Hmm, he says he loves the Los Angeles Dodgers, but his posts seem to indicate a contempt for their baseball skills?”

Everything that is posted to social media accounts, whether it’s TikTok, Facebook, Instagram … you name it, is put there voluntarily, through the exercise of the First Amendment. And like any exercise in the First Amendment, it has potential consequences (and responsibilities), which include disclosure of personal information, sometimes intentional, other times accidental. Whether it’s your next-door neighbor, your old girlfriend or someone in China, isn’t that the point of social media? A sort of arm’s-length spying?

The notion that the Chinese government is going to learn very much about us from our TikTok videos is dubious. I’d suggest we’re not half as stupid as our social media accounts make us appear. And, I’d argue: If people have put personal information on social media, it’s a choice they’ve made. And, I am not sure how what I think, the places I visit, my pets or what I had for dinner is going to be much use to them, unless they can solve the Dodgers’ starting pitching rotation — which, by the way, I’d welcome.

Congress’ response to TikTok has made me question whether any of them have even actually seen social media. It’s not like people keep their personal lives quarantined on other American-owned social media, like Facebook or Twitter. And if people have made themselves vulnerable by disclosing too much personal information, that’s a much bigger problem than communists or TikTok — that’s something that no amount of legislation will cure.

Thinking that our federal government can save us from ourselves is the epitome of nanny state.

Instead, the TikTok ban is nothing more than useful paranoia, undergirded by a sadly socially acceptable dislike of China, which is OK because … communists. As long as America puts the word “communist” in front of any word, it becomes instant anathema.

If we were really so worried about China, we’d look to the billions of dollars of foreign aid it’s pouring into countries in the southern hemisphere, and wonder if we need to do more investment. We’d also consider more thoughtfully the rare earth development and semi-conductor industry, which is almost completely China-dominated.

The problem with TikTok is that it is an easy target.

But the government can’t explain how a bunch of viral videos, dance challenges and stupid human tricks justify complete censorship.

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