i'm conflicted. i don't want chinese controlled propaganda but i don't want us controlled propaganda either. but i suspect that the "safety"/propaganda arguments are window dressing and it's really economic protectionism, which at least i understand. but from a free-enterpise perspective, banning a legally operating company simply because of it's ownership seems worrisome, and it would seem a toothless unenforceable thing in the long run (e.g. sell TikTok to its own "independent" company on paper and keep pulling the strings).

the realization is that this is a binary choice, either we ban it or we don't. but we shouldn't be in this position in the first place. neither choice is the right answer. i don't want any of the outcomes. i don't want a chinese facebook. i don't want a us controlled facebook. i don't want a facebook controlled facebook.

you want to know how to keep giant governments out of your shit (us and china and russia, etc.)? how to keep giant corporations out of your knickers? if you favor economic protectionism, how to keep other countries from undermining your industries? how to keep giant corporations (us or chinese) from exploiting their monopolies to wreck our culture just so they can serve more advertisements?

everyone on this forum, especially if you decry this ban, needs to stop defending, accepting, and allowing closed monopolistic computing and networking. app-store monopolies, for instance, secure-boot, device-non-ownership. we've given these companies persistent 100% control over our own devices and we (as surprised as you are) got monopolies. now we have to argue about which flavor of monopoly we want.

the minute, via app store policy or via crypto/secure boot, you allow a company to select what i am or am not allowed to do, see, or buy on my own devices - this is what we are doomed to deal with as a result.