DIB knows the score

Some great news out of Nepal; they're banning TikTok countrywide because it has negative effects on the country's "social harmony". That's now quite a chunk of land surrounding China that doesn't allow its spy app to penetrate society.

Countrywide:
Afghanistan
China
India
Iran
Nepal *NEW*
United States (Montana only, effective Jan 1 2024)

Government/Parliament/MOD devices:
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Denmark
Estonia
European Union
France
Ireland (advisory)
Latvia
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Taiwan
United Kingdom (+BBC staffers)
United States

All that's needed now is for the Senate to do the right thing. Once that's passed, Biden will sign it into law, then ByteDance will need to sell it. They won't be allowed to, so it will be removed from app stores. Obviously it won't be as simple as that. There will be hurdles and legal delays and what-not, but that is more or less the path it should take.

This feels like too much of a precedent and slippery slope towards the government censoring the internet as much as they want and prevent future situations like one of the world's most foremost social media companies being in the private citizen like Musk, especially if it gives the president single handed power to do it. In general acting like there can be an government arbiter of truth vs misinformation is dicey because the government doesn't always know better than private people and sometimes they're motivated by their own self interest or ideological beliefs, and even if you're lucky enough to get someone in charge who cares about truth instead of their own power, you're always an election away from it falling into a less trustworthy person's hands. It would work maybe in very low temperature times, but these are the worst times to do it since both parties are treating the other as radical threats to the US so it's easy to justify censoring them for the greater good.

I understand the slippery slope sentiment. I also understand how if Trump supported the ban and Biden didn’t you’d probably say Biden is being weak on China

I do not support Tik Tok, nor have I ever because I do not support the Chinese government or its state controlled businesses. However I do agree it is worrisome what could come down the road

Maybe actually read the bill, guys. There's so many conditions that must be met before any action is taken, and this bill has nothing to do with social media. It's to do with adversarial countries: Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea.

You have to be stupid by any standard, from any lucid perspective, to want to ban Tik Tok.

Bytedance said they won't sell, so I guess it's being removed from U.S. app stores in 2025.

It's not a ban. People that have it on their phones will still be able to use it, so all this nonsense about SMEs being affected and free speech being trampled on ... isn't true. People are just afraid of change. Instagram will do just as well, or another app will take its place.