Tik Tok on the Block

I spend a lot of time telling people that Kanye West can’t, and shouldn’t, be taken seriously, because being a candidate involves things like applications and petitions just to be listed on the ballot, and he’s done none of that.
When Donald Trump said he would delay the elections, I informed lots of people who were truly worried by this that he can’t do that. U.S. presidential elections are the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and have been since the 18th century. It’s kind of a fixed deal.
Now, Trump says he wants to ban Tik Tok in the U.S., and I’m not so sure. It’s certainly not covered in the constitution, since it didn’t exist then. Also, I’m not really an internet expert, so I don’t know if he could legally do that or not. Other countries (and I believe China is one) have banned various segments of the internet before.
What I will say is that it will be totally ineffective, and eventually over-ridden if he does.
First, of course, there’s the numbers thing. China has well over a billion people. Their population is 4 times that of the U.S. There are also Tik Tok users in Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Africa and, of course, the rest of Asia. The loss of the U.S. market would not be near as devastating to Tik Tok as Trump thinks it would be.
Then, there is the ease of inter-platform communication, which is truly one of the great things about the internet. I don’t even subscribe to Tik Tok, but I frequently see things that go viral there, because someone will post them to Facebook. I’ve even seen some of them reported on on TV, social media’s slower, dumber cousin.
Trump can’t shut all that down, any more than he can stop people from talking to each other.