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Opinion
The Editors

Banning TikTok Won’t Do Much Good

Although satisfying — and justified — a ban on the video-sharing app would amount to a missed opportunity for the US.

Everybody calm down.

Everybody calm down.

Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty

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One can think of many reasons to worry about TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform. Its executives seem to lie habitually. Its opaque algorithms and data-collection capabilities appear to be tailor-made to spread propaganda or collect sensitive information. Quite frankly, many of the most popular videos on the app seem positively deranged.

Even so: Banning the company outright — as Congress is now contemplating — is a bad idea.