Governor Abbott (Texas) Announces Statewide Plan Banning Use of TikTok
gov.texas.gov
gov.texas.gov
Basically if you want to get revoted into office again, just do/say anything that is anti-China?
Mass media propaganda distills hate/fear of China/Chinese for views and clicks or hidden agenda --> governments have no choice but to do what their voters "want" --> stuff like this happens --> get re-elected?
As I've gotten older, one of things I learned is just how powerful the media is. Once the media decides on a direction, it becomes an unstoppable rolling stone. So much of our bias is influenced by the mass media without us knowing it. I guess this is why propaganda is so powerful.
For example, the media makes a big deal of the Chinese balloons but we have military bases surrounding China, and our aircraft carriers routinely pass through waters close to China. What if China has military bases in the Caribbean and Mexico? What if China's aircraft carriers patrol the seas near New York or California? Why is the US allowed to do this but China can't? Has the propaganda gotten so powerful that the US thinks China is evil and US is benevolent?
Countervailing things, from my understanding: Minimal religious freedom (among dozens of other issues, religions are literally supposed to allow the government to vet their leadership). Unpredictable legal environment and potentially arbitrary requirements on companies if they work with culture/mass media/mass communications.
How do we decide who is more evil and who is more benevolent? Maybe we can take average Chinese and American citizens, make them do a test on evil/benevolent and then decide who gets to be the world police? What do you think?
When I agreed that implementing Covid Zero in TX would be a great idea, it went right over their heads. They’d never heard if it.
It's believable that Abbott would try to ban the app everywhere in Texas, given his desire to ban books that don't conform with his ideology, as well as his party's knee-jerk anti-China stance. But in this case, he's doing something reasonable.