Biden Bans The App His Campaign Insists Is An Important Place To Talk To Voters
Apparently TikTok is so evil and pernicious that it must be banned from the United States… and so useful that the man who signed the ban, President Joe Biden, made sure to post a few new videos to the platform. It feels like maybe his concerns are a bit overblown?
It seems that TikTok users noticed.
Makena Kelly from Wired reached out to the White House to ask the journalistic question of “wtf are you doing?” and basically got no answer.
It doesn’t seem like the administration or campaign has plans for Biden to address it either. After the Wednesday speech, I reached out to the White House to ask whether we could expect anything from the president in the near future. I was redirected to the National Security Council, which directed me to statements made by national security adviser Jake Sullivan during Wednesday’s White House press briefing. I also pinged the Biden campaign, and didn’t get a clear answer there either.
The White House did give a pretty weak answer to NBC though.
“A fragmented media environment requires us to show up and meet voters where they are — and that includes online,” a Biden campaign official told NBC News. “TikTok is one of many places we’re making sure our content is being seen by voters.”
The Biden campaign says it plans to use “every tool we have to reach young voters where they are” and has pledged to keep using “enhanced security measures.”
What a load of nonsense. If TikTok is one of the many places where you know you need to “meet voters,” then you know that it’s a media property, and an important one. The fact that you claim you’re using “enhanced security measures” also just means that the threat can’t be that serious, because any measures the admin can take, so could users, if given the opportunity.
Again, all this really does is highlight the problematic hypocrisy in this decision. It remains an attack on the open internet, which the Biden administration used to pretend to support, and now has lost any moral authority to claim it now supports.
If there were legitimate concerns about privacy and security, then pass an actual law about privacy. If there are concerns about propaganda, then suck it up and recognize that in a free country that believes in free speech, we have always had to deal with propaganda, and the best way to deal with it is through educating the public. Perhaps by using TikTok.
But, instead, the President vocally supported and now signed the bill to ban TikTok. And yet, he still wants to use it. The whole situation is ridiculous and makes the administration look silly and hypocritical.