Well sure, it corrupts the narrative they feed their own populations.

Don't think I'm saying the Chinese government is innocent here. I'm saying they're no worse than the manipulation perpetrated by any other government.

Let's be real here. If TikTok had been invented by an American company, we'd all be falling all over ourselves praising it's glory and protexting it from nefarious bullshit activity that has been harmful to the population at all costs. FaceBook, YouTube, and Twitter come to mind. Both had some positives to them but they've also been used by extra national bad actors to manipulate people for a couple of decades now.

Proven.

It's only a problem now that China is doing it with their own app that, fraby, outperforms those other two hands down.

There's a double standard here that cannot be denied.

A TikTok ban would be detrimental to more users than would be protected from pripaganda because those users would just be radicalized elsewhere. TikTok had a lot of good content and a lot of community for people with arcane interests. It's a good way for those who are isolated disabled, or unable to travel to meet people around the world and see how they live their lives. That brings ga us all oser together and gives us a basis for empathy and compassion for each other.

There's also a lot of non extremist political discourse on TikTok. TikTok's format is a decent modern substitution for what used to be discussions playing checkers, barber shop, or quiting bees.

You would cheat these communities in order to fail to solve a problem because your "solution" is couched in double standards.

Better to teach media literacy, critical thinking and how to research things than to performatively ban things to stick it to the wrong entities.