Vox Founder Admits Trump Was Right About TikTok
Bo Banks
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On Sunday, Ezra Klein, founder of the left-wing site Vox, published an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the Biden administration to take action in restricting TikTok’s ability to influence the American public.
He also commented on the widespread use of TikTok in America. Dubbing the top social media app a potential national security threat, due to its Chinese owner and ability to influence the masses through algorithms and weaponized propaganda.
“TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. And Chinese companies are vulnerable to the whims and the will of the Chinese government,” Klein wrote.
“There is no possible ambiguity on this point,” he added. “The Chinese Communist Party spent much of the last year cracking down on its tech sector. They made a particular example out of Jack Ma, the high-flying founder of Alibaba.”
Then Klein proceeded to say the quiet part out loud, “The message was unmistakable: Chief executives will act in accordance with party wishes or see their lives upended and their companies dismembered.”
As many Americans remember, former President Trump issued an executive order in August 2020 to ban TikTok from operating in the United States. The order was never carried out, but Klein believes that the Biden administration should use Trump’s executive order as a “starting point” to regulate TikTok.
Perhaps most surprisingly, Klein also admitted that Trump was right about TikTok being a national security risk, saying, “On this, Donald Trump was right, and the Biden administration should finish what he started.”
Many Americans have started to take notice of the enormous power TikTok wields.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration tried and failed to use some of the app’s biggest names to brief the public on the current Russia-Ukraine war. While also passing off blame for the nation’s rising gas prices onto Vladimir Putin.
Now, with Klein’s latest remarks, it seems that even Trump’s most ardent critics are finally beginning to see the light when it comes to TikTok. At least on this issue, it appears that both sides of the aisle can agree if willing.
Klein’s article is just the latest in a string of high-profile individuals and organizations to sound the alarm about TikTok. In recent months, several members of Congress have called for investigations into the app. The Navy has also banned TikTok from government-issued phones.
The Pentagon even recently released a report detailing how TikTok could be used by the Chinese government to collect data on American users.
The report said that TikTok “presents risks to the Department of Defense because of the possible collection of U.S. user data by the Chinese government.”
It also said that TikTok “poses a significant counterintelligence threat because of the application’s ability to access personal information and sensitive data on mobile devices.”
Remember when the media smeared Trump for similar remarks?
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