If you had to bet money on the future of Tik Tok in the USA

[Anonymous]

What is your best guess on what is ultimately going to happen to Tik Tok in the USA?

[Anonymous]

As long as it remains popular, nothing will happen. There is no practical/legal way to ban it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As long as it remains popular, nothing will happen. There is no practical/legal way to ban it.

The national security argument might make it possible. There’s little doubt that it is, but the Chinese seem to be embedded into other infrastructure too, like our phone systems. But it would be super dumb to allow tik tok to continue unfettered.

[Anonymous]

It's a hydra. Although the best answer is probably to ban Tiktok (free speech will be -- and should be -- very hard to get around, but SCOTUS will most likely do so on grounds of national security which is actually more legit of an argument than most understand), new apps will just pop up and China/Russia/et al will continue their attempts to undercut our democracy via information mining and propaganda broadcasting via SM.

[Anonymous]

But, how would it actually be banned? The US has no national firewall. There is no practical mechanism for the US government to block Internet traffic to specific servers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But, how would it actually be banned? The US has no national firewall. There is no practical mechanism for the US government to block Internet traffic to specific servers.

It could be removed from app stores for a start. It would take additional steps to prevent existing apps from connecting. But the real threat is the app on phones. It can provide access to many other things on phones.