The (Supposedly) Forthcoming TikTok Ban

[AUDub 11,147]

So Trump has been saying he's planning to ban TikTok in the USA. Both of my older kids use it, much to my chagrin. I do not like the app and have told them as much.

For those unaware of what TikTok is, it's a silly social media app that's really popular with the zoomers right now. For a marginal millennial like myself (my wife would be considered a young gen X'er, while I'm an old millenial, to give you an idea of how I just squeaked in under the upper bound), the things my kids find funny or entertaining generally come off as patently absurd.

Some of the content is funny, mind you, but a lot of it is pretty stupid. There's also a lot of content on there that is borderline child pornography, so pervs love it too. That's really more of a consequence of it being a large social network though, so that's not really on TikTok.

But the reasoning behind the likely banishment is extremely interesting to me. TikTok, see, is also a Chinese developed app and just so turns out to be a massive data gathering apparatus for the Chinese government. Other countries have already enacted bans under those auspices.

A lot of people are reacting badly to this and a lot of that is because, well, Trump, and while I dislike Trump, a lot, obviously, I can get behind this move that has been brewing for a little over a year. Like a blind squirrel finding a nut, he correctly cited national security threats as the reasoning.

I'm all for the US government banning the individual app and solely the app, by name, for those reasons. Open the floodgates and let any number of competitors or copycats rush to market to replace it. Hell, China already does that with Sina Weibo and the like over American social apps that wouldn't agree with the CCP's demand for complete access like they have with, for instance, Tik Tok. 

[AUDub 11,147]

And of course he can't get anything right without ******* it up after the fact. Sigh. 

 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

Ban it, I could care less what Trump thinks about it...but like you said there’s a National Security threat......but more importantly I want it banned so my kids will not be able to use it!!! I’ve banned it for our younger one. But my oldest is 18 sooooo....lol 

[AUDub 11,147]

9 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

Ban it, I could care less what Trump thinks about it...but like you said there’s a National Security threat......but more importantly I want it banned so my kids will not be able to use it!!! I’ve banned it for our younger one. But my oldest is 18 sooooo....lol 

15 and 13 for my oldest two, and my bans are pretty much limited to Snapchat for the time being. They aren't allowed that one.

There's only so much you can do with regard to social media. Gotta let them have a little freedom to express themselves, screw up and learn from it and all that, otherwise they'll still be children well past the point they're supposed to be adults.

Eliminate TikTok and the next app won't be too far behind, so I wouldn't concern myself with the feeble defenses offered by the outraged teens on Twitter. They'll find other ways to get their social media addiction fulfilled.

Those defenses are pretty bad, too, mostly focusing on the front end, when the back end is what really makes TikTok shady.

[GiveEmElle 1,559]

Let’s stop pretending that Trump’s concern is  national security. It’s not. Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about security for America, see Russian election interference and bounties on American soldiers. Trump is only concerned about what personally affects him. So how does Tik Tok play in? This app users sabotaged Trump’s Tulsa Rally by having people order tickets thus  corrupting campaign donor data. Oh and also there is Sarah Cooper. 
https://vm.tiktok.com/JjLKjeP/

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1 hour ago, GiveEmElle said:

Let’s stop pretending that Trump’s concern is  national security. It’s not. Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about security for America, see Russian election interference and bounties on American soldiers. Trump is only concerned about what personally affects him.

This has been brewing for quite a while and predates the Tulsa rally. There are people far smarter than him in our government, in InfoSec, that know exactly what TikTok is and have wanted it gone for a while. I can't bring myself to care for whatever Trump's hidden motive might be, he's a damned idiot, but his stated reasoning was perfectly valid.

1 hour ago, GiveEmElle said:

So how does Tik Tok play in? This app users sabotaged Trump’s Tulsa Rally by having people order tickets thus  corrupting campaign donor data. Oh and also there is Sarah Cooper. 
https://vm.tiktok.com/JjLKjeP/

As for this, I think it's silly bull**** put forward by people on these platforms to give themselves a feeling of having scored some points. I don't buy that spin. They are taking advantage of the fact many on the left will think it's cool a bunch of teenagers kneecapped this rally to cover the fact that their rally had genuinely low Trump supporter turnout. You can't sabotage an event with free tickets and no assigned seating/placement.

Credit where credit's due where the bogus registrations did make the campaign (and Fox News) bragging about 1 million sign-ups look stupid, but that is the end of its effect. The real story there is that out of over a million registrations, maybe 5,000 were actual Trump supporters who wanted to attend.

As for Sarah Cooper, I'll bet Trump isn't even aware of her. Hell, she'll be fine if Tik Tok goes away, as will most of the other "influencers" on the app. Most of them already have big footprints on Insta, FB or YouTube they can seamlessly migrate over to.

[GiveEmElle 1,559]

14 minutes ago, AUDub said:

This has been brewing for quite a while and predates the Tulsa rally. There are people far smarter than him in our government, in InfoSec, that know exactly what TikTok is and have wanted it gone for a while. I can't bring myself to care for whatever Trump's hidden motive might be, he's a damned idiot, but his stated reasoning was perfectly valid.

As for this, I think it's silly bull**** put forward by people on these platforms to give themselves a feeling of having scored some points. I don't buy that spin. They are taking advantage of the fact many on the left will think it's cool a bunch of teenagers kneecapped this rally to cover the fact that their rally had genuinely low Trump supporter turnout. You can't sabotage an event with free tickets and no assigned seating/placement.

Credit where credit's due where the bogus registrations did make the campaign (and Fox News) bragging about 1 million sign-ups look stupid, but that is the end of its effect. The real story there is that out of over a million registrations, maybe 5,000 were actual Trump supporters who wanted to attend.

As for Sarah Cooper, I'll bet Trump isn't even aware of her. Hell, she'll be fine if Tik Tok goes away, as will most of the other "influencers" on the app. Most of them already have big footprints on Insta, FB or YouTube they can seamlessly migrate over to.

First, I am only addressing Trump’s motives, not motives of people in NatSec or any other agency. If you think Trump remotely cares about our national security, you’re a fool. He doesn’t. I’m not saying you can’t agree with the ban, that’s on you. Personally I love the app and Trump can pry it out of my cold dead hand. 💁🏼‍♀️
 

Now, let’s use a little Logic about the Tulsa rally. Tik Tok users and Kpop fans ordered tickets to a rally they had no intention of attending. When you order tickets, even free ones, the campaign requires data- name, email, address, phone number. They then use this information to target donors because surely if you’ll attend a Trump rally, you’ll donate money. So thousands of people are now in a donor database for the Trump campaign. Some of them are legitimate donor targets, but thousands of them are not. The campaign has two options,  use the data and waste time targeting people who won’t  donate or scrap the entire data. So the overinflated crowd wasn’t the end of the effect. This corrupted the campaign’s data. Brilliant actually. 

Trump knows who Sarah Cooper is. She all over Twitter as well as Tik Tok. Her videos mocking him have hurt is fragile masculinity and he is hitting back with a ban. It was sheer luck that he could claim it’s because of security reasons. 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

2 hours ago, AUDub said:

15 and 13 for my oldest two, and my bans are pretty much limited to Snapchat for the time being. They aren't allowed that one.

There's only so much you can do with regard to social media. Gotta let them have a little freedom to express themselves, screw up and learn from it and all that, otherwise they'll still be children well past the point they're supposed to be adults.

Eliminate TikTok and the next app won't be too far behind, so I wouldn't concern myself with the feeble defenses offered by the outraged teens on Twitter. They'll find other ways to get their social media addiction fulfilled.

Those defenses are pretty bad, too, mostly focusing on the front end, when the back end is what really makes TikTok shady.

I agree on the let em screw up some approach. Our youngest is 11, but she thinks she’s 21. Lol , she’s the one that’s going to give us problems. Our 18 is good, we don’t have to worry about her near as much. Except she’s leaving for college next month and we’ll, it’s bittersweet!! 

[AUDub 11,147]

3 hours ago, GiveEmElle said:

First, I am only addressing Trump’s motives, not motives of people in NatSec or any other agency. If you think Trump remotely cares about our national security, you’re a fool. He doesn’t.

Elle, you're addressing an argument I have not made. I get the "let's stop pretending" with regard to his supporters trying to play this up as him rightfully being tough on China rather than seeing something in it for himself personally, sure, but I have asserted no such thing. I said he correctly cited NatSec, and whatever you believe his unstated motive to be, that reason is perfectly valid.

Whatever his motive, TikTok either being shut down or forced to divest its assets in the United States is a net positive.

Like it or not, we are in a Cold War with China currently, and giving them unfettered access to American data is not a good thing and something we need to put a stop to. 

Quote

I’m not saying you can’t agree with the ban, that’s on you. Personally I love the app and Trump can pry it out of my cold dead hand. 💁🏼‍♀️

Don't worry, there will be something right behind it to fill the gap. Hell, TikTok came out of nowhere itself to fill the gap left by Vine. 

Quote

Now, let’s use a little Logic about the Tulsa rally. Tik Tok users and Kpop fans ordered tickets to a rally they had no intention of attending. When you order tickets, even free ones, the campaign requires data- name, email, address, phone number. They then use this information to target donors because surely if you’ll attend a Trump rally, you’ll donate money. So thousands of people are now in a donor database for the Trump campaign. Some of them are legitimate donor targets, but thousands of them are not. The campaign has two options,  use the data and waste time targeting people who won’t  donate or scrap the entire data. So the overinflated crowd wasn’t the end of the effect. This corrupted the campaign’s data. Brilliant actually. 

Hell, you think that's any sort of hindrance? It was at worst an embrassment due to them stupidly counting on a larger number of attendees. Other than that, perfectly harmless. Spamming emails and texts is a breeze these days.

Nobody cares if they aren't real. That data is already mostly s*** and there's little you can do to further corrupt it. Hell, they'll make money off of whatever address you give them. They'll sell their registration lists to other campaigns, which will get them onto PAC mailing lists and sold over and over and over.

Quote

Trump knows who Sarah Cooper is. She all over Twitter as well as Tik Tok. Her videos mocking him have hurt is fragile masculinity and he is hitting back with a ban. It was sheer luck that he could claim it’s because of security reasons. 

Maybe, but I seriously doubt that. I will concede that if he did know of her, he'd be pissed, but she's:

A. Pretty small-time outside of the silly social media bubble.

B. Will be around even if TikTok evaporates overnight. 

[GiveEmElle 1,559]

16 hours ago, AUDub said:

Elle, you're addressing an argument I have not made. I get the "let's stop pretending" with regard to his supporters trying to play this up as him rightfully being tough on China rather than seeing something in it for himself personally, sure, but I have asserted no such thing. I said he correctly cited NatSec, and whatever you believe his unstated motive to be, that reason is perfectly valid.

Whatever his motive, TikTok either being shut down or forced to divest its assets in the United States is a net positive.

Like it or not, we are in a Cold War with China currently, and giving them unfettered access to American data is not a good thing and something we need to put a stop to. 

Don't worry, there will be something right behind it to fill the gap. Hell, TikTok came out of nowhere itself to fill the gap left by Vine. 

Hell, you think that's any sort of hindrance? It was at worst an embrassment due to them stupidly counting on a larger number of attendees. Other than that, perfectly harmless. Spamming emails and texts is a breeze these days.

Nobody cares if they aren't real. That data is already mostly s*** and there's little you can do to further corrupt it. Hell, they'll make money off of whatever address you give them. They'll sell their registration lists to other campaigns, which will get them onto PAC mailing lists and sold over and over and over.

Maybe, but I seriously doubt that. I will concede that if he did know of her, he'd be pissed, but she's:

A. Pretty small-time outside of the silly social media bubble.

B. Will be around even if TikTok evaporates overnight. 

I’ll concede that you weren’t making that argument , but you did respond to what I said in defense. It was just dumb luck for Trump that Tik Tok is harvesting data for the Chinese. We don’t need to promote a picture of him being concerned about China being a threat. He doesn’t care about America. 
 

I highly doubt his ban will be effective. Tik Tok is still up and running. My guess is if Trump finds out that some of his dumbass supporters are making pro Trump videos he would not issue a ban. 
 

And yes I do think it was a hinderance. 800,000 people ordered tickets and that’s quite a lot of corrupted donor data. One of my friends ordered tickets an still is getting requests for donations. She won’t give his campaign one red cent. And she isn’t the only one. If you can’t see how that’s costly to a campaign, I can’t help you. 
 

Trump recently whined about Twitter trends being unkind to him. He literally called it illegal. He is a mass consumer of social media. He knows who Sarah Cooper is.