WatDabney

The point of taking down TikTok is twofold. One, they have a Boogeyman they can use to push it through. Two, if they can shut down an app with 170 million users then they can shut down anyone.

Exactly.

They needed a pretense for taking down a social media site in spite of the fact that it’s not violating any existing laws and in spite of widespread opposition to the takedown,and TikTok served both of those purposes.

And now, armed with Supreme Court approval, they can set about barring access to pretty much any site they want, for whatever reason they want, regardless of public opinion.

That’s true, and that’s why so many internet censorship it spying bills are officially to counter pedophiles.

Yes.

But that was just an interim strategy, and could never serve their long-term goal, since all it could allow them to do is to institutionalize the authority to censor in cases of activity already deemed criminal.

The difference with the TikTok ban is that neither TikTok nor its users have been accused of any crime. This ban is being enacted in spite of the fact that there’s nothing criminal about the site, and that’s a new power.

I honestly don’t think it’s trying to soften people up to the government banning social media.

I guarantee that that’s exactly what it’s about.

It’s not a coincidence that all of the domestic social media overlords have already lined up to swear their fealty to Trump (and to hand him big piles of money). They know which way the wind is blowing, and they’re ensuring that they don’t get TikToked.

Pornhub is different though, because they could base it in existing laws barring minors from accessing pornography. It didn’t really establish any new precedents, but instead simply expanded enforcement of existing statutes to the internet.

That’s not to say it was a good thing - it just doesn’t pose the same sort of existential threat that this poses.

The difference here is that there are no existing laws that pertain to TikTok, so it’s not justvthe application of existing law to the internet. This is an entirely new power - the authority to simply pass a law decreeing that a particular site is to be banned in the US, entirely regardless of the legal standing of the site or its content, but solely because those with the authority to do so have decided that that’s what they want to do

No government ever oppresses its citizenry by announcing that they’re setting out to oppress the citizenry.

They always, without exception, do it by first targeting someone the bulk of the populace thinks deserves it, and then only later incrementally expanding their reach.

Whether or not this particular ban is enforced is irrelevant. The point was simply to establish the precedent that the government can restrict citizens’ access to social media.

A government that can ban social media sites is going to base their choices of which ones to ban on their preferences - not yours.