'Social Media' isn't a product category with safety and quality guidelines like agriculture or steel. It can't be banned on the basis of tit-for-tat without triggering a trade war blanket-banning a whole range of consumer software.

First, the trade war already started with China banning US companies domestically. Second, it’s not like the US can’t trade more with its South American neighbors instead anyways.

> China banning US companies domestically.

When did this happen?

~2009 was FB, google, clouds followed in 2017 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-amazon-cloud/amazon...

What ban? FB, Google, etc simply chose not to follow chinese laws and left. What US laws is tiktok violating? None.

Please practice the lost art of reading the article. Hint: it's discussing possible legislation.

I am all for trying.

China doesn't have any problem executing suspected spies without trial, does that mean the US should too? The US has a constitution that gives people rights; the government can't just do whatever it wants. Regardless of your personal opinion on TikTok it doesn't change that it's a product used and loved by millions of Americans, and banning it has a meaningful negative impact on them.

That escalated quickly. The topic above isn’t about espionage (which also have penalties in the US), it’s about what type of regulations the government should place on foreign social media companies like TikTok or unfortunately in this case, against it’s own citizens that use them.

You might see wonderful flowers, rainbows, and ads for friendship bracelets while another person might see death, destruction, conspiracy theories, and ads for food prepping. Selective targeting is a power that politician have wanted for many decades. That was last available through Facebook Ads and became controversial years later with Cambridge Analytica.

On one hand, TikTok might be powerful enough to change the outcome of elections in more countries than just the US. On the other hand, access to information is generally a good thing and you want people to be knowledgeable and to make more informed decisions.

How about no when it comes to killing people as you describe?

But yes on social media.

I don’t see any issues with that.

China allows social media that complies with Chinese law. Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc exited China because they were being heavily criticized in the US for supporting the Great Firewall. It was closer to a US export ban than a Chinese import ban.

Well, I want to keep using TikTok.

The government can go suck eggs.