Please Don't Take My TikTok Away

I was not going to write a blog about TikTok but here I am. VanLife and TikTok go hand in hand. Losing TikTok is like an empty shoe rack. Nothing to look forward to. I have met so many new people that are now friends and I don't want it to go away!

Writing about this is not talking about politics because it is not about a particular party. This is a bipartisan effort. This would be the one time they could agree on anything. Good grief.

The premise behind this seems to be that government (herein called GV) is afraid of several things.

First GV says that TikTok is a national security risk because its parent company, Bytedance, is owned by a Chinese company. GV says that since China is communist, they are allowed to force any Chinese company to give their data to their government.

I am probably naive but if 99.99% of our GV don't have TikTok accounts, who is leaking secrets on TikTok? I am sure I don't have any national secrets. Do you?

I was embarrassed for all of us. Our GV treated Mr. Chew so badly in the Congressional hearings. They were rude and just plain mean to him. Talk about killing the messenger.

It backfired on them though. Now that we know who he is, everyone wanted to follow him. Before the Congressional hearing, he had 30K or so followers. Mostly simple things. After the Congressional hearing, he had 1.5 million followers the last time I looked.

GV is supposedly very worried about our economy. Shutting down TikTok is going to put 5 million small and medium-sized businesses that rely on TikTok for their audience out of business, In addition, 7000 TikTok employees in the US will lose their jobs. I don't think GV thought this through.

The next thing I hear GV saying, and they do this subtly, in between commas, is they are afraid that communist China is going propagandize the American people. As I understand it, communist China has gone beyond the scope of the original definition of communism and has expanded it to have control of its citizens in many ways. Call me crazy, but isn't GV telling us the same thing by telling us we can't be on TikTok anymore because they don't want us to?

There was an enormous amount said about content for 13-year-olds. I do not consider that a TikTok problem or a government problem. That is a parent problem plain and simple. It shouldn't even be an argument.

Another concern is about "recommendation". By learning about us, TikTok in their algorithm decides what will show up on our for you page. GV is afraid that.....what? FB and IG and every other social media group along with companies such as Amazon and Google. do the same thing. Tell me you haven't talked about buying a widget and suddenly everywhere you turn are widgets for sale. You'd have to shut down the whole internet to control that.

Gov. Ted Cruz reports on his website that he sent letters to TikTok asking for answers to 20 questions. I read the questions and they were intrusive, to say the least. They wanted to know who the top 500 creators were and if they had ever been banned on TikTok and, if so, for how long and what was the reason. Now, who is mining data?

BTW, I sent an email to him asking for his stand on TikTok. I checked the box that I didn't want his newsletter. What do you suppose showed up in my inbox the next day? Yup. His newsletter. I got recommended on his algorithm.

The rest of the questions were equally as disgusting. He reports that what he got back from Mr. Chew was 18 answered questions out of 20. Mr. Z and Google didn't respond. I tried to see which questions Mr. Chew answered but when he sent a follow-up letter listing the 18 unanswered questions, apparently he sent the same 18 to Mr. Z and Google.

One question was whether or not TikTok "recommended" (that is, pushed data to certain people) political figures or content on current political issues. Is re-election coming up?

I talked to a friend on TikTok today that said she was too depressed to post on TikTok because something "felt wrong". It was being banned. How many other people are the same way?

In conclusion, (are you saying hurry up, Pam? in my humble opinion 150 Million Americans are on this platform. Many make their living here (I'm working at it). The vast majority of content is fun and informational. People are kind and caring. There is a sense of community that doesn't happen in sticks and bricks-communities. It would be a shame to destroy these communities like a nuclear bomb.

If you haven't already, email and/or call your congressman (congress.gov), senators, governor, and the President himself to express your opinion. If enough of us do it, we will be heard!

My Van Life Rant For The Day!!

Pam and Coco

BoondockandBeyond

boondockandbeyond@gmail.com