According to the Digital 2023: United States report from DataReportal, TikTok is currently the fourth most popular social media service in the United States and the most popular one not owned by Meta. In an official article published earlier this year, the company itself claimed to have more than 150 million American users, which it gleefully noted is nearly half the population.
It then proceeded to strategically highlight how totally American it is with all its American employees and American users and the American businesses that use it! The irony, of course, being that TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, and has been continuously accused of violating the privacy of its users pretty much from its inception. Accusations it denies despite ever-growing evidence to the contrary.
According to the company itself:
This milestone coincides with a critical period for TikTok. Certain politicians have raised concerns about the potential banning of our platform, which would directly affect all 150 million Americans who have embraced TikTok. To proactively address US national security concerns, we’ve taken unprecedented steps by enhancing safeguards for our US users. Over the last two years, we’ve invested $1.5 billion in setting up TikTok US Data Security and have been building a comprehensive framework to isolate protected US user data. Today, we are also proud to launch the U.S. Data Security (USDS) site aimed at providing transparency into our commitments and answering common questions around our efforts to safeguard data.
Unfortunately (for China), American voters aren’t buying it, according to a recent poll by RMG Research which was shared exclusively with the Daily Signal.
A majority of voters view TikTok as a threat to the United States. An even higher percentage favor a federal ban of the social media app, according to @RMG_Research’s poll. https://t.co/ymhEzg0QDC
— Rob Bluey (@RobertBluey) December 21, 2023
This is welcome news considering a recent poll from Pew Research Center which shows that 14% of adults in the United States regularly get news from TikTok, a number that increases to 32% for adults between the age of 18 and 29. And those numbers are only growing.
Director of the Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, Kara Frederick, claims that the Chinese government uses TikTik to harvest American user data and then exploits it for their own benefit.
According to the Daily Signal:
What to do about it? Frederick concluded the federal government should impose a wholesale ban on TikTok in the United States.
The new poll found 54% of American voters agree with the recommendation. The number jumps to 58% when respondents were asked if TikTok could be used by Chinese government to interfere in U.S. elections.
Regardless of if TikTik can be, should be, or will be banned, and to what extent, I think it’s obvious to any Americans with a bit of sense that we shouldn’t be using it.
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
