Democrats Will Face Backlash If They Ban TikTok

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So, Democrats want to pick up where Donald Trump left off and ban TikTok.

Senator Mark Warner (D-Va) claims, with little to no evidence, that the government of Ch!na is able to tap into the data generated by TikTok and to establish “dark patterns,” psyops that influence American behavior.

Did someone say psyops? Never mind that Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica to use 87 million US voters’ data, directly fueling right wing psyops and contributing to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Never mind that Facebook (now Meta) continued, years later, to allow the spread of intentional misinformation that helped catalyze the 1/6/21 Capitol Riots.

Warner’s claims amount to a “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and intends to use them against the USA” -style lie. Dangerous social media psyops? The call is coming from inside the house; it was Facebook all along. Not TikTok.

TikTokers blame Meta for this legislation. According to a number of users, Meta’s pricey lobbyists have orchestrated a campaign to smear TikTok, its far more successful competitor, and to get the Ch!nese-owned company banned.