The Truth About TikTok and China Finally Revealed!
One year ago today, I made an appearance on the Piers Morgan show to debate Tobias Ellwood, a member of the UK Parliament about the future of TikTok, the Chinese app that literally changed the entire world of social media.
The success of TikTok is a testament to the vision of Zhang Yi Ming, the Chinese entrepreneur who first thought about the social media platform some 12 years ago while sitting with his friends in a two bedroom apartment in Beijing.
China is no stranger to social media apps. With a population of 1.4 billion people, the Chinese social media space is alive and well, with literally hundreds of different apps.
But What Makes TikTok Different?
When Zhang Yi Ming set out to create TikTok he made a brilliant decision. He decided to create “two ecosystems”. The first ecosystem would be called Douyin 抖音 and would operate exclusively inside of Mainland China.
The second ecosystem would be called TikTok and operate in every country outside of China. This approach was completely new and much different than a social network like Facebook, which only operates only one ecosystem and tries to serve the entire world.
But Why Does the US Government Want to Ban TikTok?
The US Government has now reached a new level of hysteria with China. Almost anything from China is now a “National Security Threat”. I mean look at how ridiculous this story is from the Washington Times! Do you really think the Chinese government doesn’t have better things to do with their time than spy on Americans through coffee pots? Of course the answer is no! You seriously can’t make up how ridiculous the paranoia has become.
But the “ban of TikTok” has been a hot topic for a while and the truth behind this move was revealed by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party a congressional led group of self-proclaimed China Hawks who simply portray everything from China as a threat to the future of America. Watch this clip:
I want to thank the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party for their honesty in this video. The truth is this bill has absolutely NOTHING to do with national security, protecting US citizen's rights, or whatever nonsense the Select Committee tries to sell you.
The reality is the US government wants to see TikTok owned by an American company and those profits made (and most importantly) taxed inside the US.
The United States wants to see it’s biggest social media competitor become American and is trying to force them to sell the company. In the United States, we have a popular saying: “It’s all about the Benjamins Baby!”
This is a reference to Benjamin Franklin who appears on the US $100 bill. This phrase means: It’s all about the money! This is such a true statement as money and greed rules corporate America, our government, our politicians, and almost everything else in this country. But now you know the truth behind America’s attempt to ban TikTok.
If you haven’t seen my interview with Piers Morgan please click the image to see the whole video. Piers was shocked by the truth I shared with him and at the end left the debate with a much more nuanced view on China and TikTok!
As always, you’re Great, Cyrus.
Ellwood is definitely confusing China with the USA. "China is not abiding by our [i.e. the USA's] international rules and norms"? It is mostly abiding to int'l law (!), which it is the USA who's not abiding by almost all of the time. Who cares about that "rules based order" undermining int'l law where the USA makes the rules and orders everyone around? And how inappropriate for a person from the UK to criticize a country "to arrest people who they say say something against the state" when it's the UK itself that's illegally imprisoning a foreign journalist before the eyes of the world for the "crime" of journalism.
While I definitely believe, "it's all about the money", the SC video itself doesn't show this so clearly to me. They really disguise it as a national security issue with their "[US] American adversary" notion. Which is only a way to illegitimately criminalize your int'l competitor. But how is it not a "ban", if Unitedstatian users (obviously, by "Americans", he doesn't refer to e.g. Chilenos) are supposed to only THEN "enjoy" TikTok, AFTER it's sold?
What I really find revealing is how the speaker just mentions a possible Rep. or Dem., not e.g. a Socialdemocratic, future administration, marking the USA practically just as much as a 2-party democracy/autocracy as the GDR was a 1-party democracy/autocracy. Not to confuse USA and GDR: the USA definitely did more war, genocide, slavery, spying on, political imprisoning of and murdering of their own citizens. Those poor Euro-Americans, Africans and Americans fighting for their and the freedom of us all (just think of Chelsea Manning or Julian Assange [EDIT: J.A. isn't from Am.]). What they do e.g. with their African socialistic, constitutionally protected competitor parties we can see here: "Florida Uhuru leader defends Russia, bashes Colonial powers after FBI press conference" <https://youtu.be/wJj9typ7SbA>. OMG, she's so good! ✊🏿