This week, the incumbent Russ Fulcher voted in favor of H.R. 7521, a bill which sells itself as a means to ban TikTok and other foreign-owned social media companies that use algorithmic manipulation to propagandize their users. This bill is horrible, and Mr. Fulcher should be ashamed of his vote.
Social media sites and apps are not healthy pastimes for teenagers. Young, impressionable minds are especially vulnerable to being coerced into believing absurdities and joining in on unhealthy social trends. This bill does not actually attempt to fight that. It just insists that if any social media are to do that, they must be under the sway of the US Government, not any foreign government.
These software systems also harvest a great deal of information about their users, compile that information into reports, and sell those reports to whomever they can, including corporate advertisers, spy networks, and governments. This bill does not actually attempt to fight that. It just insists that the systems must be primarily for the use of the US Government.
Mr. Fulcher demonstrates with his vote that he trusts the Biden Administration to decide which websites and apps need to be controlled or shut down by the US Federal Government. I do not trust the Biden Administration to decide which brand of adult diapers Mr. Biden should wear. Fulcher does not understand the scope or scale of the problem of government power in America. He must be replaced.
Adults in America are fully capable of searching out the media they find interesting, and deciding whether they’d like to trust any given piece they come across. Children and teenagers are still learning those skills, but it must be parents, not the government, that helps them understand how to discern fact from fiction and good from evil. Parents, pay attention to what your children are doing, with whom they are talking, and what media they are consuming. You are your children’s first, last, and best line of defense against the manipulations of all governments and corporations around the world. I trust you to do it well. Russ Fulcher does not.
This bill will not merely be used to shut down or change the ownership of one Chinese-backed social media site. The Biden Administration, and future presidential administrations, will use the powers it looks to grant to shut down political dissent of all types, whether it be radical secessionists like me, or parents concerned that there is pornography in their kindergarten library. The PATRIOT Act was sold by telling us that we didn’t need to worry, because it would only be used against the terrorists. We know now how much of a lie the government is willing to tell to seize power. Do not trust them. You are their enemy.