Is TikTok Dangerous?

By Howard Bloom

On June 24th, one of the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, wrote a lone wolf letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Carr asked the heads of Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores.

That is a big ask. Wired Magazine reports that TikTok “has more than one billion users, double that of Snapchat and Twitter combined.” And “TikTok stars [are] making up to $5 million a year on the platform.”

What’s more, asking that Apple and Google no longer make TikTok available is a violation of the Constitution’s right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Remember, TikTok has provided a whole new kind of public square. A place where you can perform and gather a following.

So why this move? Says Carr, apps owned by Chinese firms pose a “national security threat” and can be used as “sophisticated tools of surveillance” and manipulation. In other words, apps from China can be used as weapons of war.

Carr’s letter was not co-signed by his fellow commissioners, and Carr is a Republican holdover in a Democratic administration, so his letter does not carry the…