Snippet: A Digital Red Scare? ☇

Nick Heer:

I had today’s hearing playing in the background and it was a tense and frustrating back-and-forth. As is typical for these kinds of hearings, lawmakers mostly soapboxed relentlessly, asked complicated questions they framed as a simple matter of yes or no, and did not let Chew finish answering. The word “communist” was used with the same frequency and tone as the word “fuck” in “Uncut Gems”. It was very clear, from the outset, that most committee members were not much interested in investigating, but were instead trying to justify a forthcoming likely vote to ban TikTok from the United States. Perhaps appropriately, a representative named McCarthy supports a TikTok ban.