AJ is a good home inspector, but let’s focus on being an inspector, not an entertainer. If he is so focused on teaching about home inspections, he shouldn’t worry about his TikTok “entertainer” profits. We have other platforms that provide knowledge, and home inspectors perspectives of how to get the job done right. TikTok has been pushing their limits influencing younger folks with mindless, neuron melting, creativity killing content.
Read the article again and focus on the last section of it. I state that if TikTok gets banned, then the global reach that I’ve had being able to educate millions of people goes away. Sure, the profits are nice, but the main goal of doing what I said in the article goes away.
I’d much rather have that than a government that tells me what I can, and can’t watch… especially after our government spread propaganda through pre-Musk Twitter about Russian collusion to influence our most important national election. I know who my enemy is.
Our government has no business telling us what material we can and can’t access. Who the hell do they think they are?
Last paragraph:
“. . .to make money on TikTok or to be able to get my business name out there anymore,” Jenkins said.”
So, it’s all about the Benjamins!
If TikTok is not taken away from Chinese control, then it should be shut down in America. IMO national security is a more important issue than ANY social media site.
This may be a good option to keep the site going in this country if Chinese owned ByteDance is willing to sell it.
It’s a long (and dangerous and lazy) leap from “TikTok has been pushing their limits influencing younger folks with mindless, neuron melting, creativity killing content…” etc to empowering government officials to make these judgement calls.
Don’t look at it. Don’t let your kids look at it, or better yet, raise your kids with enough compassion, curiosity and character that they can see it for what it is. Demand induces supply - we’re fed with stupidity because we clamor for stupidity. That’s the problem we (individually and as groups) need to solve, not the “problem” of insufficient government power.
Not to rail on your comment here, but I’m also troubled by your wanting to control how other inspectors make a living. I doubt you really want that. This way of thinking is along the lines of the autocrat’s reasoning of “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of” which follows a logic, of crouse, but is insidious and results in miserable, impoverished and corrupt cultures.
Sorry - I’m not a CMI - I’ll remove my comment if there’s objection.
I agree but as of yet the evidence is sketchy as to what the Chinese government is doing with the information that they can access from Tiktok. One the other hand their government cannot be trusted and if they are spying on Americans then Tiktok should be banned. This is a bipartisan effort in the congress so the issue should not be a political one. In the recent house vote 50 Democrats vote against the ban compared to only 15 Republicans.
According to people who get paid to study this stuff for a living, it’s about more than just stealing information, but also about manipulating algorithms and shaping the views and opinions of people, AKA brainwashing.
The bill’s supporters say ByteDance as a Chinese firm simply cannot go against the wishes of Beijing, and can provide access to the data on more than 170 million American users for everything from spying to election influence campaigns.
These concerns have been echoed by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies – including by the FBI director this week – as well as regulators elsewhere.
TikTok is banned from government employees’ work phones in the United States and several other nations including Australia and Canada over security concerns.
In 2020, TikTok was among hundreds of Chinese apps barred in India after deadly clashes on the country’s border with China. New Delhi said at the time the bans were intended to defend against threats to its sovereignty.
You don’t have to be a CMI to have an opinion. We’re not THAT intolerant. Well, most of us.
I was going to be a TikTok star, but it was suggested I have more of a face for radio. 
Our government is our biggest national security concern. We know what they do with regard to information they don’t want us to have and it’s horrible. Biden actually tried to set up an agency called “The Ministry of Truth” to quash information that he doesn’t want out.
Think of all the government lies that worked even though we can access other platforms like TikTok or Al Jazeera or Alex Jones or post-Musk Twitter (X). What happens when we only have government-approved information like North Korea???
That’s way worse than what TikTok does to children who’s parents let them spend too much time on it.
“My goal is to educate with a little bit of sarcasm and humor and if TikTok is banned, I can’t do that,” Jenkins said. “And ultimately it takes away from the original goal that I had was just to reach the everyday American to teach them what to look for in a house.”
Literally in the article.
Wow! You sure have a strong opinion about how Austin runs his business!
(In the article, he explains that the platform produces about 40% of his income)
You sound like a competitor. Are these other platforms free of mindless, neuron-melting content? (Which Austin does not produce).
I agree with you here.
But producing 40% of your income is sure to be more of a motivation. (also from your article) Don’t need to read between the lines to see why you are for the platform. Doesn’t make Tik Tok safe or desirable for the rest of us. The chinese government owns and abuses ALL technology emanating from within their boundaries.
But nothing as horrible as our own government does. It used its technical superiority to dishonorably attack, invade, and occupy two sovereign nations on the other side of the world, nations that had no hand in 911 and were doing us no harm, murdering tens of thousands of civilans in the process. Don’t forget who the bad guys are.
Try that line on someone who escaped Mao Se Tung’s China. Thhere is simply no comparison. The “new” China is not so different. You would not be allowed your opinion. Speak it and you would simply disappear. There is no “unrest” in China, it is not allowed.
I agree with @rkenney , @gromicko . This was recently on 60 minutes.
You certainly don’t see Americans trying to migrate to China.
Quite the precedent. Shutting down TikTok will embolden every nation to shut down Twitter, Facebook, Google and the American tech giants. This may be good or bad in the end, but it certainly undermines the notion of the Internet as a global commons.