3/13/24: TIKTOK’S SICK TALK W/ MICHAEL GARFIELD AND JP BOVENZI
The House approved legislation dubbed, Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that calls for China tech giant, ByteDance to divest TikTok, and effectively be banned in the U.S. Independent presidential candidate, RFK Jr. wrote, “The so-called ‘Tik Tok ban’ is actually a Trojan Horse that could allow the President to ban any website or app merely by asserting that it is ‘controlled or guided’ by a foreign adversary.” This is a free speech issue and a matter of limited government vs. legislative overreach that appears to set the stage for widespread abuse. Tonight on Ground Zero (7-10pm, pacific time), Clyde Lewis talks with tech and social media expert, Michael Garfield and host of The Paradigm Shift, JP Bovenzi about TIKTOK’S SICK TALK.
SHOW SAMPLE:
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Every day we are learning that neoliberalism has run its course, resulting in the impoverishment of large sections of the population. But to dampen dissent and lower expectations, the levels of personal freedom we have been used to will not be tolerated. This means that the wider population will be subjected to the discipline of an emerging surveillance state.
To push back against any dissent, ordinary people are being told that they must sacrifice personal liberty to protect public health, and societal security — they are told that they must comply with approved words and ideas that promote Marxist ideologies.
Unlike in the old normal of neoliberalism, an ideological shift is occurring whereby personal freedoms are increasingly depicted as being dangerous because they run counter to the collective good.
We all know that the so-called Great Reset envisages a transformation of Western societies, resulting in permanent restrictions on fundamental liberties and mass surveillance. It is to be rolled out under the benign term of a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution.
We will rent everything, we will have no wealth and we will be fed genetically engineered food and government-generated propaganda — feed your gut and feed your head with low-quality homogenized and tampered-with trash.
Everything we are told we should accept should be seen as a Trojan Horse or a bomb hidden in plain sight– because things are changing rapidly –and the globalists have such a short window to meet their goals of full spectrum control.
The world government has been busy. We have been seeing the food transition that is underway that will help the world body reach one of its sustainability goals. We are seeing the introduction of central bank currencies — another transition for more control of wealth. We are seeing the censorship of free speech hiding behind strict hate speech penalties and clampdowns on protest. We are seeing alternative and independent whistleblowers and journalists being killed — to silence anyone who wishes to expose corporate and government criminality.
The new economy is to be dominated by a handful of tech giants, global conglomerates, and e-commerce platforms — There will be in future tech giants that will face shutdown if any government sees them as propaganda centers that influence elections or the overall social strata of the world.
This is why current events in the tech world need to be addressed as the steps for government internet takeover have begun. The Social reset is underway and it is hiding behind the old excuse that it is for the greater good.
The House approved the legislation, dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, that calls for China tech giant ByteDance to divest TikTok will effectively be banned in the U.S.
The bill now heads to the Senate where it faces an uncertain future as senators appear divided about the legislation.
While there are many opinions about TikTok and its ties to China, how this bill was jammed secretly through the process is suspect.
It also does not take into account the effect it will have on the economy as 7 million small businesses, and 170 million Americans use the service.
President Joe Biden created an official TikTok account in February as part of his election campaign.
However, he has previously said that he would sign the bill if it is passed, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged that the White House is providing “technical support” in the crafting of the legislation.
Jean-Pierre said in a media briefing on March 6 that once “it’s on legal standing and it’s in a place where it can get out of Congress, then the President would sign it.”
Again this demonstrates how out of touch this President is and that whoever is pushing this bill realized that this is a foot in the door to shut down any website that the government feels is threatening them.
The TikTok ban bill HR7521 gives the Executive Branch of government the power to define any platform/website as “foreign-owned” even if domestic, giving them the ability to control/censor the content being published by the company.
Independent presidential candidate RFK Jr. wrote, “The so-called ‘Tik Tok ban’ is a Trojan Horse that could allow the President to ban any website or app merely by asserting that it is ‘controlled or guided’ by a foreign adversary.”
Tucker Carlson claimed New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the Biden DOJ this week that Elon Musk “committed ‘election interference’ in 2022 by ‘changing the algorithms’ on X to alter the results of the midterms that year.”
Not coincidentally, the anti-TikTok legislation now being debated on the Hill would allow the federal government to force the sale of any social media platform that interferes in elections.
No matter how you feel about Tik Tok you need to understand that this is yet again an attempt by the Deep state to take advantage of anti-China sentiment to transfer TikTok’s surveillance apparatus from China’s evil surveillance state to the U.S. government’s evil surveillance state.
The Federalist CEO and co-founder Sean Davis accurately explained how and why the American Deep State wants control over TikTok, not to actually shut it down as it is too valuable of an asset to the intel agencies that are collecting its data and propagandizing the youth.
“TikTok isn’t going to be banned, because neither the CCP-run Chinese government nor the CCP-owned U.S. government wants to lose such a valuable tool for spying on Americans and poisoning the minds of their children. Instead, the corrupt U.S. intelligence bureaucracy wants control of TikTok, which is why it included the divestment mandate. Only a handful of U.S. companies are capable of buying and managing TikTok, and they already function as appendages of the Deep State surveillance apparatus.
It’s not that the U.S. government wants to protect you from spying data theft and manipulation. If only. No, the people behind the Russian collusion hoax, and the Kavanaugh hoax, and the natural origin COVID hoax, the illegal warrantless spying, and the forced training of your children—they want to be the ones spying on you and stealing your data and poisoning the minds of your children. “
Now, should a spying and subversion tool used by our communist enemies to destroy us be banned?
Well of course for the same reason that we never would’ve allowed the Soviet Union to infiltrate our homes with their own radios and television sets during the Cold War.
But that’s not what’s happening here.
We are talking about a government that allows Chinese balloons to float over missile silos to gather information.
We are talking about a government that allows Chinese nationals to purchase land near Military bases — and so what is TikTok to them?
It is again an opportunity to send a message about what can and can’t be put on the internet — Ironically we are doing that same thing China does when it does not approve of messages on certain sites — they black out or ban them.
There’s no evidence anywhere that the U.S. Government has any interest in fighting off China’s attempts to cripple our country economically, militarily, or diplomatically.
But suddenly they want you to believe they are concerned about the so-called dangers of TikTok?
I’m sorry this just doesn’t make any sense — and so whatever is happening is certainly not what it seems.
Give the government the ability to ban and they will not stop at Tik Tok — I can guarantee you that.
Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie stated on the House floor Wednesday, that the legislation to ban TikTok is a Trojan Horse that endangers the First Amendment as the president could hypothetically decide what apps and websites Americans could access.
He said the following: “People say this TikTok ban will only apply to TikTok or maybe another company that pops up just like TikTok, but the bill is written so broadly that the president could abuse that discretion and include other companies that aren’t just social media companies and aren’t, as some people would believe, controlled by foreign adversaries. Again, we’re giving the president that discretion to decide whether it is controlled by a foreign adversary.”
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) told citizens the bill would create a larger surveillance state to be used against We The People.
He said, “Really what you’re saying here is if you’re not fully engaged with America’s three-letter agencies in content moderation, we plan to TikTok you. And this bill isn’t just limited to TikTok. It’s a coercive power that can be applied to others. Apps like Telegram, Tor, and things that provide privacy would be targeted by this bill.”
Only a handful of U.S. companies are capable of buying and managing TikTok, and they already function as appendages of the Deep State surveillance apparatus.
Kentucky GOP Senator Rand Paul published a brief thread on X about how the U.S. is in control of the TikTok algorithm domestically and most of the company is owned by American and international investors.
Rand Paul broke down just who owns the platform.
He said:
60% of the company is owned by US and international investors.
20% is owned by the company founders.
20% is owned by company employees, including over 7,000 Americans.
The CEO of TikTok is from Singapore, not China.
So ask yourself why they keep repeating this lie to scare you?
It should be noted however that In 2021, a Chinese state-owned enterprise purchased a “golden share” stake in ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, allowing the Chinese government to outvote all other shareholders.
But is Tik Tok really a threat to national security?
Another website that is currently in the crosshairs of the government is Substack. Substack is an email newsletter platform that is increasingly under attack, most recently by the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL states that Substack “continues to attract extremists and conspiracy theorists who routinely use the site to profit from spreading antisemitism, misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.”
Again the powers that be see that free speech needs to be oppressed and so they see to it sanitizing the internet,
The jaws of the authoritarian vice are tightening. Shortly, the ability to express your opinion will be terminated if it runs counter to official government narratives. All avenues of expression are to be tightly monitored, moderated, and censored at the behest of the state.
The Biden administration is looking at expanding how it monitors social media sites and chatrooms and now it appears that the TikTok bill will harden their resolve.. first it will be TikTok and then some other site that they do not approve of.
Undoubtedly, this will include Substack, one of the last remaining platforms where free speech is permissible without the heavy-handed interference of the state.
In 2020, the FBI used social media to monitor racial justice protesters who were targeted for arrests. For example, activist Mike Avery was arrested after posting about protests on Facebook, and his charges were dropped without explanation a few weeks later. An FBI official was so frustrated with the extensive social media surveillance that he told the Intercept, “Man, I don’t even know what’s legal anymore.”
The dissonance between accusing TikTok of security concerns and working with other companies to invade people’s privacy rings loudly in our ears.
Social media has long been a tool used by federal agencies to target individuals and communities designated as a “threat.”
But shouldn’t the people be involved in setting the boundaries for what is and isn’t propaganda or hate speech? We seem to have a small group of elitists hacks setting the stage for a ministry of truth –and the people have no say in how this is accomplished.
The people only assume that their free speech rights will be enforced and their ability to choose will not be infringed upon.
This is why I can only imagine why there does not seem to be any outrage.
Maybe people think that these types of controls do not affect them — but they do, they certainly affect the information and the ways people can express themselves online.
It is not just TikTok that is at stake here.
Where is the societal outrage when people are forced to inject into their bodies a relatively unknown substance? Although the agenda gave “good reason” for such a thing, where was the evidence behind that reason? If any evidence came up contrary to the notion of a deadly virus killing the world and a vaccine being developed in eight months being “safe and effective,” it was quickly quelled by the powers that be and ruled to be “misinformation” and “dangerous.”
Where is the societal outrage when thousands of young people are suddenly seeking surgery and drugs to support the myth they have “misidentified” themselves based on what they are told is a lie about their biological identity? Where is the “I’m mad as hell” when “authority” determines that they are the final arbiters of truth over children, and their parents can just go to hell?
Where is the societal outrage when we are suddenly told that we will no longer be allowed to use cash, or that we have to carry a digital ID which will fundamentally wipe out any claim to personal autonomy, not to mention a destruction of personal privacy?
Where is the societal outrage when a government spends billions of dollars to support the killing of human beings in a “war” halfway across the world for no reason other than to fuel whatever nefarious, and unilateral, goals that government has?
Where is the societal outrage when large factions of unelected “people” decide to take over the governance of the world from lofty, and well-financed, institutions such as the UN, WHO, WEF, NATO, and locally, the FDA, and CDC?
Where is the societal outrage when a country’s government allows the illegal immigration of hundreds of thousands of people without any vetting whatsoever?
You can take your outrage tio the internet and maybe hashtag this and that til your fingers bleed –but when they come for digital platforms and shut them down — we are back to not having that release –which can only lead to a civil upheaval of people who are mad as hell and can’t take it anymore.
In the chance that the latest TikTok bill passes, Angelo Zino, a vice president and senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, told CNBC, it’s possible that TikTok’s U.S.-only business “could fetch a valuation north of $60 billion” when “looking at peer valuations in the market.”
“That said, we don’t even know if it would get to that point as ByteDance could decide to just have TikTok stop doing business in the U.S. if forced to do so,” Zino said in an email.
Earlier this week, prominent venture capitalist and Republican megadonor Keith Rabois said in a post on X that he would “never fund any Republican candidates or leadership PACs (or the NRSC) run by Republicans who vote against the TikTok legislation.”
“Support for the TikTok bill is an IQ test” for members of Congress, Rabois said in an email to CNBC.
A potential ban of TikTok in the U.S. has resulted in several prominent TikTok creators looking for other ways to diversify their businesses and brands outside of creating viral videos on the platform, CNBC previously reported.
Previous efforts to rein in TikTok have failed. In 2020, Donald Trump tried to ban the app by executive order but courts blocked that effort. Since then, Trump has flipped his position on TikTok.
Americans are split. A recent poll from the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 31% of U.S. adults would favor a nationwide ban on TikTok use while 35% would oppose a TikTok ban. But among those who use TikTok daily, a national ban is unpopular with 73% saying they would oppose it.
This tells me that people who do not use TikTok have no idea what the hell they are talking about — and should just shut up. If you don’t have a dog in the hunt — just don’t participate.
Even if the Senate passes the measure, a long fight lies ahead.
TikTok will exhaust legal challenges before it considers a sale of its US operations, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.
What’s more, divestiture would require Beijing’s approval. Last year, the Chinese government said it opposed a forced sale.
TikTok investors are eyeing an initial public offering. ByteDance valued itself at more than $200 billion last year when it bought back shares from existing investors. It recently launched a new share buyback. But if TikTok left the US, it would be worth less.
The bill heads to the Senate next, where it already enjoys the support of Senate Intel Chair Mark Warner (D-VA) and Vice Chair Marco Rubio.
Americans have the right to view information and don’t need to be protected by the government from information.
While TikTok has been long accused of curating degenerate content to feed the minds of Western youth, this, and worse, is what all social media platforms have been doing for years.
And with regards to the ongoing chess game to decide the fate of TikTok – on one hand, the Wall Street Journal just reported that the company believed they had scored a recent victory, including the Biden campaign embracing the platform, yet “Behind the scenes in Washington, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Biden administration officials had been quietly planning new legislation to ban TikTok or force its sale to a non-Chinese owner.”
On the other hand, Donald Trump – who has previously pushed to ban TikTok, came out against the bill (after meeting with Billionaire TikTok investor Jeff Yass who holds a 15% stake in ByteDance) – leading some to suggest that the former president had “sold out.”
We also learned from Politico that former Trump Aide Kellyanne Conway has begun lobbying for TikTok on behalf of the conservative Club for Growth – of which Yass is a large financial backer – and at whose retreat Trump praised Yass as “fantastic.”
So, lots of chess going on and forces at work.
Bottom line this is both a free speech issue and a matter of limited government vs. legislative overreach that appears to set the stage for widespread abuse.
SHOW GUESTS:
Michael Garfield is a Texas-based media personality who recently celebrated his 22nd year as host of “The High-Tech Texan Show.” His radio show can be heard across the country on many terrestrial stations and the iHeartRadio app. Michael reviews and recommends technology and consumer products across his platforms. He also keeps up with industry news and legislation, providing commentary to many news outlets. His content can be found at www.hightechtexan.com and most all social media apps at “hightechtexan.”
JP Bovenzi is the host of The Paradigm Shift, author, and screenwriter. He wrote the book, An American Doper. JP also wrote and co-wrote the screenplays, New Methico, La Desgraciada, and Mark of the Mob, just to name a few. He is an entrepreneur and currently owns and manages three businesses. TPS is on the Ground Zero Radio Network, on Saturdays from 6-8pm, pacific time.
