Skip to content

On TikTok Bans

2023-04-21 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:52 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube (also: US politics & society) · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook

As Montana, his home state, passes the first state TikTok ban, Hank, perhaps its most-followed TikToker, says the state ban is probably unenforceable and performative, that a national ban raises real worries about China's influence, but that removing a whole platform, with its cultures, would be a dramatic, unprecedented loss.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hank's peculiar position: Montana's TikTok ban, his TikTok following, reporters calling for comment

  • ★★ Hank says he lives in Montana, the first state to pass a TikTok ban. — 00:00:00 · Montana, TikTok
  • ★★ As perhaps the person in Montana with the most TikTok followers, Hank says reporters, local reporters and TikTok's comms people have been calling him for comment. — 00:00:21 · TikTok, Montana

00:00:47 — Can Montana ban TikTok: app-store ban, fractured internet, constitutionality, courts

  • ★★ Hank says he has not commented on the ban, though it seems odd not to, because honestly he does not know what to say. — 00:00:47
  • ★★★ Hank says Montana can probably not ban TikTok, at least at the moment. (hedged) — 00:00:47 · Montana, TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says the ban, headed to Governor Greg Gianforte, who is expected to sign it, would stop people downloading TikTok from an app store. (hedged) — 00:00:47 · TikTok
  • ★★★ Hank dislikes the ban because he does not want a fractured internet in which some states have a different internet than others. — 00:00:47
  • ★★ Hank says the ban may also be unconstitutional. (hedged) — 00:00:47
  • ★★ Hank expects the ban to be fought in the courts in a number of ways. (hedged) — 00:00:47

00:01:33 — Performative governance; a national ban, Chinese influence, platforms rending societies, and TikTok as cultures rather than a content pipe

  • ★★★ Hank says the state ban, like much these days, seems performative: aimed at getting people talking rather than achieving a goal, performing governance rather than governing. — 00:01:33

    “to perform governance rather than to govern”

  • ★★ Hank does not think a national TikTok ban would be performative in the same way. — 00:01:33 · TikTok

  • ★★★ Not claiming to understand US-China relations, Hank says what the Chinese government would do with its influence over TikTok in 10 years may differ greatly from today. (hedged) — 00:01:33 · TikTok, United States, China
  • ★★★ Hank says we all watched these platforms being used to rend societies in different ways over the last few years. — 00:01:33 · social media
  • ★★ Hank understands the worry that TikTok could be used to spy on high-profile people or to tilt the scale toward content that deepens social rifts. — 00:02:14 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says platforms have already created such rifts on their own for purely economic reasons, and he sees no reason they could not do it for political reasons if a government asked. — 00:02:14 · social media
  • ★★ Hank says that government requires companies operating in its country to do what it says. — 00:02:41
  • ★★★ Hank says we have never dealt with removing not just speech but an entire platform for speech. — 00:02:41
  • ★★★ Hank says TikTok is not just a place where content goes: it is many cultures and genres, where things are created that would not be created elsewhere. — 00:02:41 · TikTok

00:03:07 — Montana politics: Fox News-driven performance, whether to give it attention, thanks to saner legislators; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says a national ban is not an easy question and that we, and he, have got into a pretty weird situation. — 00:03:07
  • ★★★ Hank says at the Montana level the ban is the same performative stuff infuriating him lately: people over-obsessed with whatever Fox News is discussing that day. — 00:03:07 · Montana
  • ★★ Hank is unsure whether to give it attention, since those he votes for won't be Montana's majority soon, and the others win points for this and like the attention. (unsure) — 00:03:07 · Montana
  • ★ Hank thanks the saner voices in the Montana legislature, saying it is a hard time to do their work. — 00:03:07 · Montana

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says a national ban would be a significant loss, and rejects both frames heard so far: TikTok is trash so ban it, or a treasure so don't. — video description · TikTok
  • ★★ The description says destroying a platform's cultures is a dramatic step, and hopes lawmakers are motivated by more than distaste for social media and looking tough on China. (hedged) — video description · social media, China
  • ★★ The description says we have got into quite a pickle and it is OK to say you don't know what to do about it. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Montana · Montana TikTok ban · TikTok

Also: People: Greg Gianforte

Organizations: Fox News · Government of China · Montana Legislature

Concepts: freedom of speech · political polarization · social media · splinternet

Places: China · United States

Only in the description or credits: Intellectual humility

← Previous: goodbye to my friend · Next → I Discovered a Soap Secret