Cherry blossom season is around the corner in the nation’s capital.
As lawmakers take in the blooms, I encourage them, and particularly the 352 House members who voted for the TikTok bill on March 13, to make a side trip to the National Archives Museum, where the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is on display in beautiful round hand calligraphy.
Speaking of free speech, if an owner’s ideology is at the crux of what makes a social media company dangerous, why didn’t the U.S. government force Elon Musk to sell X, formerly Twitter? Is the government suggesting disinformation is a dish best served by capitalists?
Why should Musk be trusted with the data of more than 500 million users, not to mention Mark Zuckerberg with all the data from the Meta platforms?
The government is running scared in the land of “What If” toward a guaranteed showdown with the courts unless it can provide evidence that TikTok has ever shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities. The Senate is wise to take the slow walk.
Nick Hedrick
Crawfordsville
