Telling secrets

  A ban on freedom of speech? That seems to be what I'm hearing may occur. I confess I haven't been listening that closely but I did hear that Toc-Tok may be banned in America. All I've heard is that Tic-Tok has filed an appeal. I don't use Tic-Tok, I'm not familiar with that outlet, or social media, whatever they are calling that. It does bother me to think that our government may just decide you can't read that, use that, or have access to that. This is the land of the free the last I knew. With this they aren't talking about restricting access, they are talking about banning it altogether. That is what concerns me.

  As I said I haven't been paying close attention to Tic-Tok and what the problem is. I'll have to do some research on that. It's difficult though to get the straight of it as I really can't trust the media to report anything fairly. I have heard something about China being accused of gathering sensitive data and sharing that with the communist government of China. Without doing any research at all into that accusation all I can say is, yeah they probably are. Why wouldn't they? Seems like a no brainer.

 Thing is, they can't gather any information that isn't shared on that platform. So are they to blame? Listen, I'm not defending any Chinese communists but I will defend freedom. It was a little before my time but I remember hearing about a slogan, "loose lips, sink ships" as a method to tell people to not talk about sensitive things. I'm quite certain there were others as well. The message was plain enough, keep your mouth shut. But that was in the 1940's and communications weren't as advanced as they are today. There was radio to transmit messages secretly. Those spies had other means as well. Microfilm comes to mind. Today, all you have to do is get on social media and you can find out all kinds of stuff, secret stuff. Edward Snowden exposed the existence of global surveillance activities. I wasn't a bit surprised and all he did was confirm my suspicions. Don't misunderstand me, he is a traitor to our country, I understand he got his Soviet citizenship. 

  So I'm forced to play the devil's advocate in this situation. Whatever information China is gathering is being put there by the users of the platform. The same can be said of every social media platform or outlet of any kind. The same applies to newspapers, magazines, and the local bulletin board. Are we to ban all of those as well? It is alright to ban that platform because it is owned by the Chinese? We certainly purchase enough products from them. If we are going to say you can't "buy" Tic-Tok we would have to say, you can't buy anything Chinese. The responsibility for what is shared on that is the responsibility of the user. The outlet itself has control of that, they can block you or whatever just like Facebook does, but why would they? If you started putting money in my bank account, I'm not going to stop you. 

  The Biden administration signed a bill to ban Tic-Tok. That should be concerning to everyone. If the government is willing to ban Toc-Tok you could be next. Control of the media is essential. By controlling that, you can control the people. This from the same administration that insists every book should be in every library, available to everyone to read at any time. There should be no restrictions placed on that. Their position being, any restriction on that would effectively be a ban. You can't ban books! But you can ban Tic-Tok. So all bans aren't created equal, is that the message? I'll decide what will be banned, not you. 

  Listen up, the deal is this. The Chinese are spying on us, so are the North Koreans and every other nation in the world that has any technology capable of doing so. We, the United States of America, are doing the same thing. It has always been that way and it will continue in that fashion. The bottom line is always the same as as I have said many times, the only way to keep a secret is by not telling anyone! Most people just won't do that. Having a secret is power. Having power without the ability to exercise that power isn't very satisfying. That's why people tell secrets.

 It's not hard to understand. When your government begins to ban your freedom to speak you have started down a very slippery path. This proposal to ban Tic-Tok will not protect us from anything. Tic-Tok is only doing what every other social network is doing, gathering information. Those using it are the problem, same as always. 

 “Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government: When this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved,” (Benjamin Franklin) The government doesn't get to tell me what I can say. That is a personal responsibility. The government can however hold me accountable for that speech. It isn't the tobacco companies fault if I start smoking, it isn't the liquor company's fault if I drink too much, it isn't the pharmaceutical company's fault if I abuse drugs and it isn't Tic-Tok's fault if I talk too much! All of that is on me.