John Tamny
John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, President of the Parkview Institute, a senior fellow at the Market Institute, and a senior economic adviser to Applied Finance Advisors (www.appliedfinance.com).
“We have access to information that you don’t have.” That’s one way Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (1916–2009) explained a Vietnam War that not everyone supported. The recently passed writer and cartoonist Jules Feiffer quipped at the time that McNamara’s explanation reminded him of his “mother’s answer when I asked her to give me a reason for an action or decision she couldn’t be bothered to explain or defend. The reason she gave that ended all discussion was ‘Because.’”
Looking back to 2020, supposedly we needed to be protected from “false” information peddled on US social media sites about the coronavirus lest we get on with our lives without regard to the worries of the experts in government. They had to censor US social media, and lock us down because they knew what we allegedly didn’t.
More recently, and in defense of the federal government’s ‘sell or ban’ decree foisted on TikTok, a commentator justified the excess of government force because critics in government like Sen Tom Cotton have “seen more than most.” Forget free speech and the freedom to choose what will inform that speech, TikTok should be forced to sell to new owners regardless of their ineptitude or face a ban simply because…
Worse, and much like Feiffer’s mother, those so eager to sick the federal government on TikTok refuse to engage in discussion whereby they might answer the most basic of follow-up questions. Cotton says TikTok is a “tool of Chinese communist propaganda,” while over at the New York Times conservative David French fears that in a time of war over, say, Taiwan, “the Chinese government could start to flood into the hands of 170 million Americans its own messaging.”
Not answered by Cotton or French is when in history have government-controlled businesses not just succeeded in the most competitive environment in the world, but actually beat their American competition? French might also address the obvious, that assuming a takeover of TikTok’s content by the Chinese government, wouldn’t the latter quickly make it unappealing to users as is always the case when government nationalizes what’s private?
Don’t worry, there’s more. A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal lamented that TikTok “hoovers up data on US users and their contacts,” and that “Chinese law requires its companies to share data with Communist Party officials on demand.” Sure, but all data on all social media users is broadly available to all buyers, including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). TikTok isn’t unique here. How else to provide a site to hundreds of millions for free? Assuming a viable buyer of TikTok, such an individual or business could never raise the funds (or achieve shareholder approval) to buy the business if it planned to stop selling user data.
Which leads to another basic question: why the desire to force a sale, particularly since TikTok’s hand is being forced by government such that any sale will come at a substantial discount relative to TikTok’s actual price. Why violate the property rights of TikTok’s largely American ownership in order to achieve precisely nothing when it comes to keeping user data from finding its way to China, but at great cost to American liberty as the power of the federal government grows? Again, a basic question.
The problem now is that none of the most pertinent questions directed to TikTok’s American critics are being answered, or even acknowledged. There have been empty accusations followed by no discussion. As with so many authoritarian actions by government from the past, those questioning the logic of the federal government’s sale or ban decree on TikTok are limiting their responses to because…
This article was originally published by RealClearMarkets and made available via RealClearWire.