By Rita Cook
While not all readers might be into social media apps, and double true for TikTok because it is (narrative inserted here) “owned by China” I want to clear up this China rumor that mainstream media has pounded into the heads of many Americans. Fortunately, two attorneys spoke to the Supreme Court last week on behalf of TikTok/ByteDance and the plaintiffs opposing the TikTok ban and cleared this misinformation up for SCOTUS.
The ban is set for January 19, 2025.
Just one day before the inauguration.
I know I have heard the “China” narrative ad nauseam, to the point I stopped trying to explain.
However, the above-mentioned attorneys gave an elementary explanation in their press conference about how ridiculous the ban is, so read below and be your own judge if you think TikTok is “owned” by China.
After that, decide if you think it is a clever idea for the US government to determine it is okay to take away any form of free speech in this country.
Americans hired these “politicians,” not to babysit, but to do the job they were voted into office to do. That was NOT to take away America’s free speech.
We tell the government how to run the show based on the Constitution, they do not tell us. Yet somehow, Americans have become prisoners by their own employees (i.e., Senate and the House) and these three-letter agencies no longer do their job implementing laws, instead making laws up that sometimes work against the people.
If Americans are old enough to work, pay taxes, go to war, and be killed for this country, then said Americans should be able to say what they want without censorship.
And this is a bipartisan issue so you cannot swing left or right for the blame on this one. There were votes on both sides of the aisle to push this agenda through.
The nerve of these politicians to take our freedom of speech away because people are uncovering the truth and lies. Effectively the gig is up and the lobbyists and politicians know it.
Maybe through TikTok, maybe through research or other social media platforms or even alternative news sources, we have discovered what the government has been up to while Americans were sleeping; US patents manipulating weather or projects like MK Ultra https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-we-know-about-cias-midcentury-mind-control-project-180962836/ or Project Paperclip https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-horrible-secrets-of-operation-paperclip-an-int – it is not pretty what Americans have been discovering and speaking out about. To that end many believe that is why the government sees this free speech platform as a threat.
Okay fine, you don’t like TikTok, but do you like your free speech?
It has been reported TikTok has contributed over $32B to the US economy while supporting 5M small businesses and 2M creators. One TikTok business owner said it will cost Americans $1.3B in the first month if the app is banned and it supports over 200,000 jobs.
Overall, the reason TikTok is being challenged is supposedly “National Security.”
If National Security is at such risk why are other apps like Temu still allowed?
Who are these people in Washington D.C. who think they have a right to destroy the Constitution while they sit on top of their “ban” wagon.
In the press conference after the SCOTUS appearance last week attorney Noel Francisco spoke representing TikTok Incorporated and parent company ByteDance Limited.
He said, “The justices are extremely engaged and they fully understand the importance of this case not only for the American citizens but for first amendment law and the rights for everybody.”
He pointed out TikTok is a US company and is incorporated in the State of California with thousands of employees based in the United States.
Francisco said, “The government does not dispute it is a Bonafide subsidiary operated in the United States in accordance with all applicable American corporate law.”
He also pointed out ByteDance Limited is a private holding company registered in the Cayman Islands and is not owned by China and “no arm of the Chinese government has an arm directly or indirectly in TikTok Incorporated or ByteDance,” he explained.
He said, “ByteDance is 58% owned by global institutional investors including very large American institutional investors, it is 21% owned by its employees, many who are Americans in the United States and it is 21% owned by one of its founders who is a Chinese national living in Singapore.”
TikTok Incorporated, he said, “Exercises independent judgement with respect to the algorithm in the United States. The code for the algorithm is brought into the United States and stored on servers located in Virginia.
“There it is converted into executable code that is modified, customized, and trained pursuant to moderation policies and implemented in the United States. So, when TikTok Incorporated implements the recommendation in the United States that is very much TikTok Incorporated speech and the speech of a US entity speaking in the United States.”
Francisco also pointed out the intellectual property is not owned by the Chinese government. It is owned by ByteDance Limited, which is a global entity and a company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and has subsidiaries throughout the world.
“The US government concedes that it has no evidence that China has ever attempted to date to control the US TikTok platform,” Francisco stressed. “It concedes that China has not attempted to censor content on the platform, it concedes that China has not attempted to misappropriate user data in the United States.”
All who can see clearly can see this ban puts America’s first amendment rights at stake.
Francisco said in the press conference too “We are talking about a social media platform that is used regularly by 170 million Americans, which is half the country. This country has never taken the step of shutting down a speech platform, much less such an important speech platform because, as the government effectively concedes in its brief, it is afraid the content that could come out on that platform might be dangerous. We do not normally think of speech as dangerous and the Supreme Court has said speech is not dangerous and you do not shut down a speech platform because you are worried about speech being dangerous, that is the whole point of the first amendment. That we engage ideas with ideas and we let the truth come out and that is the fundamental problem with this act, it does not reflect the trust the first amendment places in the American people.”
Attorney Jeff Fisher who represents the TikTok creators in the case summed it up, “The government has never threatened to shut down speech on a platform because of the ideas being expressed.”
Another person pointed out TikTok is part of a Trust, which means a US ban is a violation of 18 USC 241-242 in that “Americans and the remaining 20% is owned by the company’s founder who is a private individual and not part of a state or government entity.”
Someone pointed out the TikTok CEO Shou Xi Chew got his start as an intern at Facebook and the Zucky just cannot stand Chew’s app is doing better that his Meta mess. I do not know about that, but I know Zucky seemed to have rolled over to tell members of congress all about how “people from the Biden administration would call up our team” and basically ask Meta to censor Covid content. Zuckerberg said the emails are published highlighting the bullying, and now he is trying to play good cop way too late in the game as he sings a different tune about “working with President Trump to push back on governments around the world going after American companies and pushing to censor more.”
Most TikTok folks are not going back to Meta, they are going to Red Note (and that one is owned by China).
Another question is why is the government banning TikTok over “spy concerns’ yet drones that are still not been identified are daily being seen all over the US (Dallas now included) and the government is not the least bit interested in figuring out that national security issue.
Another scratch my head moment, they want to ban TikTok over national security but the government has allowed as of 2024 Chinese investors/businesses to buy 383,935 acres in the US.
The government does not want Americans talking because we realize we have more in common than not and we might start pointing the finger at the politicians who have gained revenue at the cost of American dissension.
One final thought, according to Newsweek, there are eight countries in the world with some form of ban on TikTok in place that includes Afghanistan, and Iran.
How many of you are comfortable waking up on January 20 and being on the short list of countries with these two I just named, since we know the governments in those countries do not allow free speech?
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