In an authoritarian state, in the name of national security, people can be arrested, things are banned, cannot do this, that....

 I tend to believe in the narrative that the banning of Tik Tok has to do with its platform allowing ongoing conversation between users about the genocide in Gaza by the Israelis. This has prompted Netanyahu to pressure the USA Congress to do the necessary to ban Tik Tok, using National Security reasons by the USA and pushing the narrative that Tik Tok is controlled by the CCP, which it is not. After all, National Security issue is an easy to use and difficult to prove narrative that the USA has been using like a duck to water.

It is also reported that Trump is giving a 90-day reprieve to Tik Tok pending further action after that. We have also heard the news that Trump and Xi had contacted each other and talked to each other on a number of topics, with Trump gloating that they have successfully sound out each other over many issues. I just wonder if they talked about the Tik Tok issue, which Trump himself is a subscriber.

The Chinese co-founders, I understand, have a minor 20% stake in ByteDance, a Chinese company incorporated in the Cayman Island, and the owner of Tik Tok, with 20% stake in the hands of employees and 60% owned by institutional investors. The Tik Tok app is being run by a Singaporean, based in Singapore.

This indicates that Tik Tok has little to do directly with the CCP nor is under its control and is therefore should not in any way be a National Security issue for the USA. Tik Tok users in the USA are not even complaining about accusations that the App is stealing their user particulars, with some users even offering such information to Tik Tok to spite the USA Government. Tik Tok users in the USA knows that the Chinese Government has neither the time nor interest in the personal life of each and every one of the 170 million users in the USA. It is a fabricated and fallacious argument. There is undoubtedly a deep political motive that the USA Government is using to ban the app.

Now, we are seeing a bigger problem manifesting itself with Tik Tok refugees moving to Rednote, an even more China-centric app, and discovering how the USA Government had lied to them for decades about China. They were shocked to discover that life in China was so much better than in the USA for the lower income group. Everything was so cheap, available and affordable, overturning the mantra that Chinese citizens are suffering under the Socialist Government in China.

Having said that, I do not know whether Trump can be trusted to let Tik Tok continue after the 90-day reprieve. I personally would not be too positive knowing how the USA political system works, and Tik Tok had better not be overly optimistic about long term survival in the USA. After all, remember that Trump is going to be there for another just 4 years.

Anonymous