Should TikTok Be Banned?

UPCOMING DEBATE PODCAST. EPISODE RELEASE FRIDAY, MARCH 3.

With one billion active users across more than 150 countries, TikTok is by many measures the world’s most successful video app. Nearly one in three Americans have an account. It is the most downloaded app since 2021. And like virtually all of social media, user privacy concerns abound. But TikTok adds an extra layer. Owned by Chinese company ByteDance, there are worries that U.S. data could be transmitted to China’s government, despite assurances from the company that it is not. Those concerns prompted President Joe Biden to ban Tiktok from government phones. More than half of U.S. states have similar controls in place. But with increased tensions between Beijing and Washington, and mounting questions of Chinese surveillance, some are calling for the U.S. to go further and ban the technology outright. Those supporting such a move often to point to a ban on another Chinese tech giant, Huawei, as an effective means of limiting China’s influence and potentially extractive technological efforts. Those who argue against it say a ban would essentially undermine what has become an important tool in the video marketplace, and that such efforts are not only political motivated, but are also easily bypassed. In that context, we debate the following: Should the U.S. Ban TikTok?

ARGUING “YES”

Kori Schake, Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute

Kori Schake is a senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Dr. Schake is the former deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. She has worked at the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the National Security Council at the White House. Author of five books, most recently “America vs. the West: Can the Liberal World Order Be Preserved?,” Dr. Schake is widely published in policy journals and the popular press. She has a doctorate in government and politics from the University of Maryland.

ARGUING “NO”

Milton Mueller, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy and Founder and Director, Internet Governance Project

Milton Mueller is an internationally prominent scholar specializing in the political economy of information and communication. Dr. Mueller is the co-founder and director of the Internet Governance Project, a policy analysis center for global internet governance. The author of seven books and scores of journal articles, his work informs not only public policy but also science and technology studies, law, economics, communications, and international studies. His books "Will the Internet Fragment?" (Polity, 2017), "Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance" (MIT Press, 2010) and "Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace" (MIT Press, 2002) are acclaimed scholarly accounts of the global governance regime emerging around the internet. Dr. Mueller’s research employs the theoretical tools of institutional economics, and political economy, as well as historical, qualitative and quantitative methods.

#iq2us #debate #tiktok #tiktokchina #socialmedia #disinformation #china #spyballoon #tiktoknews #cybersecurity #Biden #wallstreet #whitehousenews #globalnews #globalpolitics #technology

@tiktok @tiktok_daily620 @AEI @NationalSecurityAgencyGov

===================================

Official site

Open to Debate Twitter

Open to Debate Facebook

===================================

-~-~~-~~~-~~-~-

Please watch: "Unresolved: The Iran Threat"

-~-~~-~~~-~~-~-