Is This The Fall of TikTok?
- Justin Rhodes
- Mar 18, 2023
- 4 min read
Power of The People
I don't believe that TikTok should be inherently banned — The sole reason being freedom and setting a precedent to outright ban something such as this is simply bad. People are starting to understand that some events that occur are planned specifically to set a precedence. But while citizens of the United States clearly do not trust their own government or mainstream news outlets, how can we be certain that all the information given to us is accurate? We’ve been in an information War for several years. With the fear that ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok) is directly controlled by China’s CCP, it’s difficult to say whether or not TikTok can be trusted.
The Biden Administration has demanded that ByteDance must sell their application, or they will be subject to a ban in the United States. Personally, I have reason not to trust the Biden Administration and therefore the Biden Admin’s statement looks like a red flag, considering some believe that Biden is friendly with China. Leaders of Social Media platforms cannot be trusted—That much is apparent after the Twitter Files came out; exposed were the sickening values, or rather a transparent indication of the-lack-thereof. There was never truly any trustworthy clarity to begin with from the blue-bird platform, at least not before Elon Musk took it over—Whom appears based, himself.
So we must ask ourselves, if the supposedly underhanded Government regulated news platforms, Government Admin, Leaders of Social Media platforms, overly doctored search engine results and more cannot be trusted… where do we turn when we cannot trust the information offered to us on a silver platter? Pair the distrust with so much information at our fingertips that we may even, at times, suffer from information overload—We have a huge problem. I wish that I could offer better answers to you other than what I am about to say:
A healthy level of skepticism can be wonderful but so can an open mind. I personally try to look for opinions that are based and do my best to follow information that at least seems logical, shouts common sense or is backed by actual proven facts.
A company that has mass influence such as TikTok (& other social media/similar) must share the responsibility of protecting user data and not abusing our rights as citizens of the world. Our privacy and basic freedoms are constantly under attack in so many ways that it can be overwhelming to some. Instead of banning TikTok, TikTok + others should be required to update their Privacy Policy to be reasonable; they must become non-intrusive of our privacy, as they are very intrusive currently. They shouldn't be tracking your every move and collecting so much data and especially data that is unnecessary to their basic operation needs. Secondly, Terms of Service should not be forcing you to agree to basically selling your soul. Again make it reasonable.
The fact that TikTok’s own General Counsel Erich Andersen said in a company email which Forbes received stated, “in this case individuals misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data” is alarming on its own. ByteDance’s spokesperson Jennifer Banks claimed that spying did occur, “We have strongly condemned the actions of the individuals found to have been involved, and they are no longer employed at ByteDance,” and, “Our internal investigation is still ongoing, and we will cooperate with any official investigations when brought to us.”
ByteDance claims a vow to spend $1.5 billion to protect American user data and ensure that Chinese officials could not access the information. I believe we should give them that chance.
If you would like to read more accurate information on this topic, we recommend the DailyWire’s report on the ongoing TikTok’s Federal Criminal Investigation.
Our legal system is so corrupt that it's disgusting. It's almost as if these companies are using their Terms of Service in order to legally abuse us. That's what it feels like, right? Nothing excuses this type of behavior from these powerful companies who are all aligned in some manner or another as a part of a giant monopoly, with masters greater in wealth and power than the corporations that they puppeteer. As a smaller company that’s just getting started—And as the owner of this company, I’m taking a risk in sharing this opinion (which should not be a risk!), but we as a company believe in Freedom for all people and Free Speech.
TikTok’s algorithm is powerful and some content can be informative and some truthful which puts power back in the hands of the people—in a world where we see our rights disappearing more and more each day, it’s imperative that we do our best to retain as much freedom as possible where we can. Though the concerns regarding the claims about TikTok being controlled by the CCP are alarming, True or Not, who’s to say that the U.S. Government isn’t simply using this as a means to take more power away from the people? I do not believe that TikTok requires all of the intrusive permissions from devices that they ask for to maintain a properly working application.
Attempting to be a voice of reason and neutrality here, shouldn’t we demand first that TikTok change its Privacy Policy, Terms of Service and offer a chance for them to commit to their vow to spend their money to protect and secure user data as they claim? For now, we're going to look into a newer social media platform called Ibble, which seems similar to TikTok.
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Thanks for reading.
— Justin
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