Suppose Congress passed a law to ban a Communist Chinese spyware/social-malware app, the president signed it, and the Supreme Court upheld it, but nobody made it happen.
That seems to be where we are today with TikTok, despite SCOTUS upholding the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act (RESTRICT Act), signed into law in April of last year.
The Supreme Court early Friday "refused to block a federal law that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States as early as this weekend if the wildly popular video-sharing app does not divest from Chinese ownership," according to the Washington Post writeup. By law, TikTok may be ordered to divest itself to a U.S. owner or cease U.S. operations on Sunday.
So far, so good. But in the Year of Our Absurdities 2025, simply following the law and doing the right thing for national security isn't going to be so easy.
Before we get to today's absurdities, here is a very quick recap of what's wrong with TikTok.
The video-sharing app collects reams of data, just like privacy-busting behemoths such as Meta (owner of Instagram and Facebook) and Alphabet (parent of Google). While China's ByteDance corporation (owner of TikTok) pinky-swears that data doesn't reach China… well, you'll just have to take their word for it, and Xi Jinping's, too.
Worse, the American version of TikTok is designed to function as an enabler of social contagions, highlighting the most aberrant behaviors and conditioning its mostly younger users to think of them as normal. It's a grooming app, in other words. The Chinese version of TikTok serves its youthful audience a healthy diet of science, technology, math, history, life skills, patriotic themes, physical fitness, etc.
China allows zero Western social media apps in China but insists that we allow TikTok access to our kids. ByteDance is so in Beijing's pocket that it would rather cease U.S. operations than give up its influence here.
Presidentish Joe Biden, with just three days left in office, says he won't enforce the ban. The New York Post reported Thursday that the outgoing semi-POTUS "has decided to pass the buck to President-elect Donald Trump." That's rich, considering how many last-minute executive orders the Biden White House has issued in its closing weeks in its "sneaky" effort to hamstring President-elect Trump before he's even sworn back in.
Trump, however, signaled that he's ready to make a deal with Beijing to keep TikTok ticking and tocking.
Incoming White House national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News yesterday, “We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark.” The law gives the president the authority to allow Communist operations of the spyware app to continue for “as long as a viable deal is on the table.”
The irony is that it was Trump who got the ball rolling on a TikTok ban during the last year of his first term. As president, Trump signed the original 2020 executive order banning TikTok, citing "credible evidence" that ByteDance "might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States."
Now, Trump promises to "save" the social malware platform.
You know I've been all on board the Trump Train for three elections now but backtracks like this one show the occasional weakness of having a booster/negotiator for POTUS instead of a conservative with deep and long-held convictions.
The story is developing and — who knows? — maybe once he's back in office, Trump will do what he promised to do with TikTok in 2020.
Recommended: Starship Flight Test 7: Now That Was One Spectacular Failure
P.S. Thank you so much for your VIP membership. If you aren't already a member, there's never been a better time than now, during our 74% off (!!!) POTUS47 promotion.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member