TikTok, the popular video-sharing platform in which zoomers and baby boomers debase themselves in pursuit of viral notoriety, is a Chinese spyware app.
The app’s security concerns are serious enough that the U.S. Department of Defense ordered military personnel in December 2019 to delete the Chinese-developed-and-owned program from government-issued and personal smartphones. The concerns are serious enough that the Biden 2020 campaign similarly ordered staffers in July to delete the app from work and personal smartphones.
Yet from following the media coverage this week of President Trump’s plan to ban or force a sale of TikTok, one gets the sense that he is merely lashing out at the app allegedly responsible for poor turnout at his 2020 campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, rather than reacting to a legitimate security threat from a clearly hostile world superpower. From watching the news, one gets the sense that the country would suffer a real loss (even violations of human rights) were it to lose the supposedly playful China-based social media platform.
“For TikTok stars,” reads a recent Washington Post headline, “Trump’s banning of the app would be devastating: It’s ‘given me my entire life.’”
The Washington Post alleged elsewhere that the president’s recent action against the app is purely political, claiming, “Trump’s vow to ban TikTok reflects GOP’s anti-China posture ahead of elections.”
In yet another report, the Washington Post alleges that TikTok is simply the “latest in a line of new communication technologies that began with simpler intentions but were drawn into politics once they reached a critical mass.”
“The last major wave of anti-China sentiment in the United States unfolded in the 1950s with the popularization of television. The entertainment and media industry came under heavy scrutiny in the McCarthy hearings, as the broad reach of TV and film became apparent,” reads the report.
CNN, for its part, advocated on behalf of the Chinese app with a sympathetic report that warns, “As Trump threatens ban, TikTok says it wants to fight foreign interference in the November election.”
“It would be helpful,” said CNN national security analyst Sam Vinograd, “to hear from an intelligence professional regarding the threat posed by [TikTok].” Does Vinograd not have the Internet?
Over at NBC News, journalist Kalhan Rosenblatt opined, “TikTokers told me they’re worried Trump’s ban will eliminate communities they rely on, especially during quarantine.” Oh, the heart breaks.
“President Trump’s threatened TikTok ban could motivate young users to vote, some say,” NBC News warned elsewhere.
“It kind of feels like our freedom of speech is being taken away,” the network quotes an 18-year-old as saying. “Our ability to express ourselves is something he doesn’t want.”
The New York Times reports that the loss of TikTok would strike a blow to serious activist causes and perhaps even democracy itself.
“Young users say TikTok is a crucial outlet for education about climate change, systemic racism and the Black Lives Matter movement,” the paper of record reports.
In the world of political commentary, it was much of the same.
“How small does a man have to be — how fragile and broken — to try and extinguish a goofy dances and funny skits video because some kids used it to inflate RSVPs for his COVID superspreader rally?” asked MSNBC’s most ignorant host, Joy Reid.
Wired declared elsewhere, “President Trump’s proposed TikTok ban isn’t just bad for Gen Z. It’s bad for free speech, free markets, and US democracy.”
“President Donald Trump’s threat to ban the app TikTok … could herald a new hi-tech iron curtain that divides the world,” declared an opinion article published by CNN.
You get the picture. This is what you get when you have a news media that is reflexively anti-Trump — to the point of literally taking the opposite side of anything he says.
TikTok is not just some fun app. It is a national security problem big enough that Sen. Chuck Schumer asked the director of national intelligence to provide the Senate with an assessment of the security threats posed specifically by TikTok and similar apps from China.
TikTok has begun an aggressive, well-funded lobbying campaign to persuade editorial boards and lawmakers to avoid taking this issue seriously. The media does not serve the public by falling for it so easily.
