Post Opinions requested readers to inform us how they use TikTookay, how their lives would change if the video-sharing app have been banned and the way a lot energy authorities ought to have to manage social media. This is what they instructed us.I train social media advertising. TikTookay is the platform of alternative for Gen Z and a helpful a part of any model’s social portfolio. Banning TikTookay is idiotic if information privateness is the priority, as a result of one other social media firm would merely promote that info to the Chinese authorities.We have successfully zero on-line privateness protections, and social media platforms have gotten extra hostile to unbiased analysis; take a look at how a lot it prices to entry X’s software programming interface. It’s an endemic drawback throughout society, not one particular to TikTookay.No one would die if we “banned” TikTookay, though content material creators would be crushed, and we would lose some capital from that market. I would in all probability entry TikTookay by way of a digital personal community as a result of I would be offended.But it’s not the actual drawback. The actual drawback is that enormous corporations monetize and promote our information to everybody. The actual drawback is that misinformation can’t be managed on the platforms. The actual drawback is that it takes a whistleblower to disclose how algorithms work to our growing old legislators, lots of whom wouldn’t know an algorithm if it bit them on the ankle.The federal authorities ought to regulate social media on behalf of the general public, which suggests elevated transparency and privateness safety. If the federal government desires to work to make social media really safer, lawmakers ought to discuss to a big selection of researchers and public coverage professionals and require social media corporations to provide these individuals the entry they should consider threats. Sinophobia can’t be the idea of those insurance policies.Elizabeth Marsh, North Miami, Fla.Social media corporations have far an excessive amount of affect on our society, significantly on the younger. My grandchildren are teenagers and preteens. Banning TikTookay would empower dad and mom to assist them put down their telephones and be taught to have interaction extra powerfully with in-person relationships. It would additionally defend younger individuals from on-line predators.If TikTookay have been banned, I would breathe a nice sigh of aid.Trudy Krisher, Columbus, OhioTikTookay not solely helps me cross time but additionally permits me to seek out books I’d like, snippets to determine whether or not I wish to learn what somebody has advisable and scores from different reviewers. Thanks to TikTookay, I simply learn 29 books in 60 days. Plus, who doesn’t love the animal movies?I perceive the necessity to defend us, however the authorities must also perceive that we will defend ourselves. TikTookay customers usually are not as silly as lawmakers appear to assume we’re. I’m struggling to grasp what they’re even making an attempt to guard us from. Banning one thing simply because it’s owned by a firm from a completely different nation? I believed we have been higher than this.Alyssa Knight, Junction City, Kan.Asking how a lot energy the federal government ought to have to manage social media is placing a hand on the dimensions. The federal authorities has lengthy had a very sturdy position in regulating the digital mass media. The Justice Department broke up the group of phone corporations nicknamed “Ma Bell” within the Nineteen Eighties. The Federal Communications Commission dates to 1934. The federal authorities even stepped in to forestall Thomas Edison’s try and create a “film belief” by way of patent controls in 1915. The old-school argument for this type of regulation was that it was crucial and correct in no small half as a result of “the airwaves belong to us,” and that’s true! Private rights to the electromagnetic spectrum within the United States are extremely circumscribed and have been for a whereas.John Anderson, MinneapolisTikTookay is my No. 1 supply of training, information, leisure and neighborhood, plain and easy. I barely watch TV or films anymore. In addition, it offers me a platform to share private info in addition to present some training and leisure for others. I’ve been a therapist and seminar chief and am joyful to contribute my information and expertise in areas akin to ladies’s empowerment, relationships, growing old and freedom from indoctrination. I’m so grateful to have a place to share. For the primary time in my life, I’m within the information and what’s going on on this planet. In addition, I get to specific enjoyable and foolish issues and exhibit abilities I’d really feel shy or awkward about in actual life.It seems that the federal government is making an attempt to restrict our proper to free speech by pretending this potential ban has one thing to do with safety. No one buys it. People who’re on social media know that our info is being shared by all of the platforms we use. To me, banning TikTookay feels much less like a matter of security and extra like different app executives eager to lower competitors within the context of a broader need to inhibit information-sharing. If there have been a approach to cease all platforms from promoting our info, now that would be good.Barbara Yaffee, Paso Robles, Calif.I’m not against social media regulation. Heavy-handed techniques akin to obligatory divestment or a ban can’t be referred to as regulation within the correct sense of the phrase, as a result of they pressure a structural change on the firm that may hurt its potential to operate. I work in tech, and I consider TikTookay’s overseas possession is what permits it to be extra modern, since U.S. corporations are usually stuffed with boring groupthink and dictums from administration.Instead of banning TikTookay or forcing mum or dad firm ByteDance to promote it, Congress ought to contemplate the method the European Union has taken with the Media Freedom Act and the Digital Markets Act, that are geared toward selling competitors and defending journalists from censorship and harassment. In addition, algorithm transparency and mandating entry to software programming interfaces would allow customers to make use of third-party apps to browse main platforms the best way they select — and convey extra advantages of competitors to {the marketplace}.Mark Jacobs, San FranciscoI have discovered TikTookay to be a helpful supply of political information. There are content material creators from each events, and I can hear each side of a story. I prefer to comply with creators who’re a part of the cosplay neighborhood. I’ve additionally discovered new music I like and new artists who work together with their followers.I see makes an attempt to manage TikTookay as a matter of management, not safety. It’s a free-form platform that has extensive enchantment. Meta fails in that regard. And Twitter was destroyed when Elon Musk purchased it.If TikTookay have been banned, I would use a digital personal community or go on the darkish internet to maintain accessing it. Government’s energy to manage social media ought to be severely restricted. Any actions in opposition to a firm ought to be thought-about a free-speech difficulty.Alan Stanley, Anza, Calif.I’m a content material creator. My following began to develop after I lived in Australia, and I moved to the United States to additional my profession and seize the chance that this nation has all the time provided. I’ve a neighborhood of greater than 390,000 individuals on TikTookay. I’ve all the time had an curiosity in style and leisure however no connections to those worlds by way of household. TikTookay gave me a platform to pursue this profession, a privilege I by no means thought I would have.The lack of this platform would be a lack of not solely cash but additionally my outlet for my voice and expression, pursuits I believed have been assured within the United States. Under these circumstances, I would strongly contemplate leaving the United States. This is a slippery slope; the place is the road when an app is taken into account a menace to nationwide safety? When it doesn’t match inside a member of presidency’s personal political opinions? Or when it doesn’t search to pour cash into the United States alone? When are authorities going to carry a mirror to U.S. corporations answerable for and caught promoting information? A TikTookay ban would be the beginning of the top. I’m a twin citizen and have moved on the idea of labor earlier than — and would contemplate doing so once more if this ban is enacted.It is necessary to manage when there are threats evident. Child-safety measures are a nice instance of regulation of social media being crucial and cheap, and I consider there ought to be extra regulation. However, having watched hearings in Congress, I don’t have religion that the decision-makers have a agency grasp on how TikTookay works — or WiFi or the web, for that matter. Lawmakers should have a baseline of normal information so as to make choices about these items. After all, I wouldn’t belief a surgeon to function on me in the event that they couldn’t find my leg.TikTookay performs a minimal position in my life, at finest. I discover streams of selfie movies nearly as irritating as photograph selfies. Now, get off my garden!If social media poses a nationwide safety query, the federal authorities ought to have energy to manage it. State and native governments ought to maintain their noses out of it.Robert Bitzan, Crystal, Minn.Governments ought to have the facility to make sure social media platforms are secure and accountable, specializing in defending privateness, stopping misinformation and guaranteeing equity in content material moderation. However, laws must be balanced to keep away from stifling free speech and innovation. It’s important to seek out a center floor that promotes consumer security with out compromising the basic values of openness and free expression that make social media helpful.Javier Negrete, Los Angeles
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/20/tiktok-social-media-regulation/
