Holt: Digital censorship is more than removing apps from our phones

Richard Holt

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In recent months, we’ve seen an alarming push by the government to ban TikTok, a wildly popular app enjoyed by millions of Americans. Banning TikTok is more than just removing an app from our phones — it directly assaults everything this country was built to stand for. It’s an act of federal overreach that should send chills down the spine of any American who cherishes their freedoms.

Our Founding Fathers did not fight for an overbearing government that dictates every aspect of our lives. They believed in a land where liberty and personal responsibility reign supreme, where free citizens make their own free choices about how to live their free lives. They did not fight for a government that controls what we watch, what we read or how we obtain our information.

Banning TikTok is wrong. It’s the type of heavy-handed authoritarianism we have spent centuries fighting abroad and at home. Whether we like the app or not, Americans should be free to choose what we engage.

The sinister people advocating for banning TikTok cloak their motives in the guise of national security. They tell us that TikTok is a threat, that it’s spying on us for China. But let’s not forget that we’ve heard similar claims before. When the government says it is taking something away for our safety, we must ask what they’re up to.

The security concerns are little more than a smokescreen. Behind this rhetoric lies a more cynical motivation — greed. The lawmakers leading the charge against TikTok are heavily invested in its competitor companies like Meta, Alphabet and Snap.

Congressmen Ro Khanna, D-Calif., Blake Moore, R-Utah, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, hold significant shares in Meta. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has substantial investments in Meta and Alphabet. These are the companies that stand to benefit financially if TikTok is banned.

This is corruption at its worst. Politicians, who are supposed to serve the public, are using their power to destroy competition to protect and grow their wealth. They claim to act in the name of national security, but they are pigs feeding from the public trough. By banning TikTok, they’re not making us safer — they’re making themselves richer.

We’ve seen this kind of manipulation before, and it wasn’t limited to TikTok. During the COVID-19 pandemic, platforms like YouTube used their power to censor anyone who dared to question the official narrative. Videos discussing alternative treatments or critiquing lockdowns were taken down in droves. 

Social media companies deliberately manipulated information and silenced dissenting opinions while claiming to “protect the public.” Now, many of those same platforms are supporting the ban of a competitor under the guise of national security. The truth is, they’re interested in preserving their dominance and their worldview, no matter the cost to our freedoms.

Meta has hired conservative lobbying firms to push an anti-TikTok agenda to influence public opinion and sway politicians by planting negative stories about TikTok. This aligns with Meta’s broader strategy to weaken its competitors and bolster its market share.

This isn’t just unethical — it’s profoundly un-American. It takes us back to a time when the Nazis claimed they were protecting their people from dangerous, subversive ideas, while today, proponents of the TikTok ban argue that it protects us from foreign interference. Just as the Nazi book burnings were an assault on intellectual freedom, the TikTok ban represents an assault on digital freedom in our modern era.

TikTok has also given voice to countless marginalized communities, providing them with a space to share their art, music and stories with the world. For these artists, the platform has been a lifeline that allows them to build followings and careers without the backing of industry giants. Banning TikTok would effectively silence these voices, cutting off a critical avenue for self-expression and success.

When did it become acceptable for the government to act as a tool of the wealthy and powerful at best and as agents of an Orwellian state at worst? When did it become OK for politicians to manipulate policy to line their pockets while strangling Lady Liberty with the American flag?

If we allow the government to ban TikTok today, what will they ban tomorrow? Will they decide that we can no longer access specific news sites because they don’t like the information being shared? Will they come for our books, our movies, our music? Need they search our house for contraband like the Redcoats during the siege of Boston? Perhaps an old KGB agent can help them organize the best censorship program ever? For national security, of course!

It’s time for all of us to stand up for what’s right. It’s time to push back against the overreach of a government that has lost its way. It’s time to remind those in power that they work for us, not the other way around.

Editor’s note: Richard Holt is a member of the Project 21 black leadership network, an initiative of The National Center for Public Policy Research. Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.