It has a website. I've used the website, never the app.

True, but those can also be banned (in a literal or practical sense).

Great Firewall of America

You can freely install apps on your iphone. All you need is an Apple computer. It only can be used for a week? before you have to install it again. I don't pay apple a dime and still develop software for iPhones occasionally without any issues.

Also, websites are pretty powerful. Apple even allowed websites to send notifications now.

If you believe that a significant portion of iOS users are going to set up an Apple development account and manually reinstall TikTok every week then I have a bridge to sell you.

They will just switch to a different social network, which is equally destructive but not Chinese.

I didn’t do anything special. I just installed Xcode, and bam. Done.

We ripped CDs so we didn’t have to buy them. Hell, we sat by boomboxes until the right song came on the radio just to push record on the tape player.

Kids will do whatever it takes to get what they want. I’d buy that bridge.

> I just installed Xcode

I think you are overestimating the tech know-how of the average person and how driven the average teenager is. TikTok a year ago was pretty unique, but now you have YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. I'd bet a hard money that 99% of people will just switch to those in a heartbeat if TikTok was banned.

> Kids will do whatever it takes to get what they want. I’d buy that bridge.

What they want is cheap dopamine hit from the smartphone. It's really close to drugs, make heroin hard to get and people will go to an analog like fentanyl.

Except a MacBook costs $1000+ when TikTok clones are free

I guess many of us underestimate how many teenagers own a smartphone but not a laptop/desktop computer. In older generation it was the reverse, people owned a laptop/desktop before owning a smartphone..

Even if they have a computer, it's not necessarily going to be an Apple computer. Unless you're a developer, interoperability between your mobile hardware and your desktop hardware is barely a concern.

Most kids didn’t rip CDs though, they had a friend who was good with computers that occasionally did this for them.

> I just installed Xcode, and bam. Done.

Like the commenter above you said; I too have a bridge to sell.

What percentage of TikTok users are you expecting to do either of those two things in order to access the app if it’s banned by the federal government?

The government has multiple tools it can use to ban websites as well.

Serious question: would Apple and Google allowing users to install their own apps on their phones count as aiding/abetting in this case, when the crime is an American using TikTok?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...

Did anyone else notice this bill includes a provision that requires the department of Commerce to inform the president Quiet partwhen wall street has made such a cockup of gamblingQuiet part that it becomes a national security risk and gives him the power to issue an Executive Order requiring the general investing public sell that particular stock so hedge funds can pay off their debt?

S.686 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686

Which section is that in? I didn't read anything that way but maybe I need to re-read

Re-reading, I may be mistaken. S.686 is still in committee and it looks like S.1143 looks to have passed the Senate. I read an article this morning that suggested S.686 is meant to be a rider, can't find it now.

Ah okay, thanks!