TikTok

I’ll be calling my representatives tomorrow to tell them to vote No on the bill to ban TikTok!

The U.S. Congress is voting this Saturday evening (4/20) on whether to ban the social media platform used by 150 million Americans, mostly younger people. Talk about a buzz kill. (I turn my back on politics for two seconds and this what happens). I did not know until today.

Why is this so important? Because TikTok has become the paragon of free speech in this country in recent years. It is a platform for safe, honest, face-face (video-post format) communication between total strangers, allowing them unprecedented insight into each other’s lives and beliefs. It’s a free marketplace for the sharing of information about all subjects. Even subjects you never knew existed. The platform is also a haven for ethnic minorities, artists, independent journalists and other vulnerable populations who are otherwise silenced or disadvantaged.

Roughly one third of Americans support banning the platform, according to a recent poll by The Associated press. The nationalist fear is that TikTok is Chinese propaganda and data espionage. True, it is operated by a Chinese company, ByteDance. However, it is American citizens who post the vast majority of the content. Furthermore, since July 2022 all the content is now monitored by an American corporation, Austin-based, Oracle to mitigate the threat to national security the app poses.

What makes TikTok an indispensable home for truth is The Face. Most people share videos in which they speak directly to the camera. This is crucial because it allows the human psyche to perform its natural authenticity-verification process in real-time. You can easily tell if somebody is lying or telling the truth. If they are being genuine or not. Compare this to text-based social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and WordPress where you cannot see the author’s face and therefore have no way of verifying a user’s true identity or motives besides taking their word for it. Many accounts are bots. On Youtube, especially.

Tiktok used to be the World Wide Web at its actualized potential. A democratic space where truth and ideas could flourish. But things have changed ever since Oracle began managing the data stream in July 2022. Users are now routinely warned and banned if they share any information, even facts / documents that paint American corporations or the corrupt political establishment in a negative light. And they aren’t stopping at censorship. They want it gone for good.

If congress passes the ban, which is attached to another $100 Billion aid package for Israel and Ukraine, America is going dark. We will have no reliable source for truth or communication with each other any more. No defense against the domestic mind-control propaganda that preys upon each individual alone in their home. The powers that be can manufacture consent with all-time high efficiency. You can bet they’ll paint the Chinese as blood-sucking spiders from mars. Don’t believe it. Ignorance is our one true enemy, my friend.

President Biden said recently he will sign the bill if it passes congress Saturday. If true this would be an astonishing political blunder for the incumbent president since there is a general election in 6 months and in the dog diarrhea / cat vomit shell game of American politics, the democratic candidate is supposed to be the one appealing to younger voters, who vote blue by a wide margin. Banning the youth’s most-prized social media platform would be like trying to win the approval of your nephew by smashing his favorite toy in front of him.

For so many people TikTok is the only thing that makes any sense any more. It provides a means of expression. It is company for the lonely, truth for the deceived, and free, uncontaminated information for all. Its destruction would be nothing short of a tragedy. Which is why I will be calling my representatives tomorrow to tell them to vote No on this bill to ban TikTok!

-Experience Film