I said they wouldn’t do it. But they did!

Back on March 11, I boldly said, “My Prediction … Congress Won’t Ban It”. It, of course, is Tik Tok. On Wednesday, Biden signed the bill to begin the process of reining Tic Tok in. The Chinese company ByteDance now has between 9 months and a year to sell it or spin it off to a US based company.

My prediction was based on money. As I wrote then,

It’s because there are other players … players with a lot of money … who consider the question and decide, “Hmmmm … If they can ban [Tik Tok] then they can ban my [addictive Internet cash cow] too.”

From Fox to Facebook, [Interrnet companies] get very sensitive when we start talking about regulating any kind of media. Did you know that Meta’s revenue for 2023 was about $135 billion? That’s “Billion” with a “B”.

You can buy a lot of Congress-persons with that kind of drag.

All that is still true. Tik Tok has started grinding out commercials. Their “argument” is really interesting. So far, they think they can lie their way through this. Their commercials are all mom, apple pie, and hop-scotch in the back yard. You would never know that Tik Tok is a cacodaemon of the Chinese dictatorship. But the American daemons haven’t even started their attack.

It’s a done deal now?

Well … Maybe. It is for this round in Congress. They won’t get around to talking “repeal” until next year. We now have the delicate tribal Dance of the Courtrooms to endure. In 2020, the state of Montana tried and failed to ban Tik Tok. It didn’t even make it past the first round. As we have learned, these rounds of appeal after appeal can go on for years if you have the money to pay lawyers. And ByteDance does have the money. So, the 24-hour news mills have a new feed stock to keep them supplied.

The main argument against banning Tic Tok is the libertarian chant, “Let my people go!” It’s a fundamental philosophical argument. If people want to sell their souls, well … What’s wrong with that? It’s a free-market transaction.

I like to use the metaphorical example of “The Tragedy of the Commons” to introduce my side of the argument. The basic underlying principle that makes civilization possible is a shared agreement to follow rules that limit our behavior. Even libertarians will agree that there are limits … somewhere. Libertarians who think there are no limits at all are anarchists. Want to burn down your neighbor’s house? No problem! Now … What’s that trick for starting a fire again?

After some rational thought, nearly all people will realize that the whole argument boils down to where the limits are and how to decide. Totalitarian governments like China, Russia, and increasingly, Trump’s pal in Hungary have a built in advantage. The limits are wherever Xi Jinping says they are. And if you disagree, well, mass graves are easy to dig with modern construction equipment. Next question?

Western democracies get really confused, however. Modern political science has leveled the playing field so much that 50-50 stalemates are common now. Both sides have access to the same mind-control techniques. And since these techniques work, it’s another example of the conundrum of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. One of the functions of tools like Tic Tok is to keep it that way so democracies will just sit there and vibrate without doing anything.

It works pretty well. That’s why I was really surprised to see Tic Tok lose even this first round in Congress. But Xi is probably just chuckling in his tea about it. There are many rounds to come.