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If you live in Montana, things are about to get wonky when it comes to TikTok.
Well, more wonky than that video of a bulldozer getting stuck in the mud, a glass bridge that is freaking everyone out in an unnamed foreign country, or Karen Gillan riding a dolly track.
For an app that seems mostly harmless and fun, TikTok has created quite the controversy. The federal government doesn’t allow employees to use it. The House grilled the CEO about how the Chinese government is spying on us. You could make the case that the free and easy access to a plethora of dancing videos is about to come to an end.
This is pretty serious.
In Montana, a new bill would make it illegal to distribute the app. A fine of $10,000 per day would be levied against app stores or TikTok itself if the app is accessible in that state. Thankfully, the users would not be fined. All that’s left is for the Governor of Montana to sign the bill.
I fall somewhere in the middle on this issue, as is my usual stance. On the one hand, no one wants to allow a foreign government to spy on us and use that information to influence elections. TikTok is just one example of that possible influence. Yet, I can also understand why banning apps could lead to some serious problems related to censorship.
It’s also not possible. When you go to download an app, you don’t have to disclose your location and the companies that run the most popular app stores, namely Apple and Google, don’t require that you reveal too much about your identity. I’ve proved this before using a VPN connection and was able to download apps just fine without any restrictions.
I also don’t mind defending the app stores in this case — they are merely a conduit for allowing users to download apps, so it seems odd to hold them accountable for one app with a hefty daily fine. It’s obviously meant to make a statement to other states that are considering similar legislation. If the bill passes, it’s just a matter of time before other states follow along.
Does this mean TikTik now has a short shelf life?
I would say it does. The fact that Montana is taking an aggressive stance like this with one Chinese-owned app is revealing a lot about the current state of technology. This is the first time an app like TikTok will be banned in one state with a fine due to possible government spying. Does it mean there are other apps states and federal agencies will ban? That’s entirely possible.
Most of the solutions to the problem don’t hold water. President Biden would like to force ByteDance to sell the app to a United States company (let’s say, Google). That seems like meddling to me. Other proposals involve some guarantee that user data be stored on a server located stateside, which sounds incredibly difficult to monitor and enforce.
My view on this entire topic is that the users — all of us — have decided we don’t care. We have exchanged privacy for entertainment. We know TikTok could be spying on us, and we keep using it anyway. I believe that is a more serious issue, that we don’t mind how our data is being used and how we are being influenced, because frankly we are all being influenced.
TikTok bans will be just the beginning. Other bans will follow. The question for all of us is simple: When will we care about our privacy enough to change how we use technology?
