Rand Paul @RandPaul Why am I joining @tiktok_us just as the government ban begins? Because I don’t like being told what to do. I don’t like being told what I can think or say. The courts may think @tiktok_us is excluded from the first amendment. I don’t. I join @tiktok_us today as a form of civil disobedience. To the 170 million Americans using @tiktok_us : Don’t give in and don’t give up. Resist. https://econlib.org/library/Mill/mlLbty.html Find me on Tiktok: https://tiktok.com/@randpaul?_t=ZP-8tAtprRNNwU&_r=1 12:52 PM · Jan 18, 2025 · 1.6M Views

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   djsumdog (djsumdog@djsumdog.com)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jan-2025 14:12:22 JST djsumdog

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   Someone sent me this. I normally like Rand Paul, but I think he's totally off on this. First, this is not a free speech issue. It's an export control issue. You're talking about a product. If you are against this, you have to be against ITAR, US sanctions on Russian/Chinese companies, etc. ... and I think there is a case to be made on some of those. But it's not a speech argument.

   Second thing is, it's all smoke and mirrors. The CIA literally has people who left for director level positions at TikTok years ago. Does anyone thing they really "left" the CIA? The US government essentially has the people they want in key positions for moderation and data collection.

   I think what's really going on is Alphabet/Meta lobbying behind the scenes for this. Tiktok is murdering them in advertising conversation. People buy more stuff from ads on Tiktok than Instagram/YouBoob. This is all about ad share. That's literally it.