Congress has a "strained" relationship with the voter. On one hand, the voter put them in that position. On the other hand, the voter is a greater danger to the individual in Congress than any foreign adversary. As a result, politicians try to control the voter, the way an employee would try to manage their manager.

This is done in a number of ways. For example, because the media has a great influence on the voter, politicians seek to influence the media. Journalists who publish unfavorable information are denied valuable interviews, incentivizing them to stay close to the administration. Lobbyists with connections to major advertisers, which have a great influence on the media, are attended to with high priority.

Another method is to close off the voter's access to information that originates outside a politician's sphere of influence. This can be done by encouraging nationalist jingoism and a distrust of outside influence, by outright bans on foreign press, or in this case, by either banning or causing a transfer of ownership of a social media platform that had proven unhelpful to a past administration's intent for the media landscape. For TikTok, this was hosting middle east peace activism.