Tok Tik

I write 15 hours before the TikTok ban. I know almost exactly nothing about Tik Tok (I just installed the app as an act of … well it might not be available the day after tomorrow). I know almost nothing about social media or modern tech. That never stopped me before.The story is that a bipartisan majority in the House and in the Senate and Joe Biden told the Chinese company ByteDance which owns the video sharing app TikTok that TikTok would be banned in the USA on January 19 2025 unless ByteDance sold it to a non Chinese company. The clock is TikToking. Biden has said that the issue is up to Donald Trump. Trump has (shockingly) said nothing coherant.Unsuprisingly TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will attend Trump’s inauguration. He will also attend a Trump victory rally on the 19th – the key day. My guess is that flattery will get him everywhere and Trump will declare the ban defunct (claiming to over-rule a law unsurprisingly showing no respect for the rule of law).I have a flaky idea for dealing with concerns about China spying via TikTok and about Chinese influence operations working through the TikTok video suggestion algorithm. ByteDance keeps TikTok outside of the US but turns over US operations to a new firm TokTik. All US users get TokTik accounts following the foreign TIkTok accounts they followed and the US TokTic accounts which correspond to your old TikTok accounts. TikTok is only informed of videos posted by TokTik account 347,143, say, with no other information. Importantly TokTik would never send notifications or follow users’ activity on other apps (just installed TikTok and said No N0 !). The TokTik algorithm written by people Xi Jin Ping can’t reach and shared with US regulators. TokTik shares ad revenues with TikTok as well as cash up front from investors (I want the investor to be the US Treasury but I’m a socialist).Not going to happen. Aside from the total impracticality, I suspect that possible spying and influence operations were an excuse and the real issue is that Congress didn’t want a huge non US Social media company. Acting in the interests of US social media companies sure fits the TechBro oligopoly hypothesis just stated by Joe Biden (who signed the bill in to law).Shou Zi Chew’s efforts look to me a lot like oligarch vs oligarch.Welcome to the new age.More By This Author:Housing Bubble, Mortgage Debt, And GDPWhy Didn’t Biden’s Economy Appear To Be Strong? Crude Oil Reserves Fall