Kokas wants Congress to do something else besides ban TikTok
Analyzing the article
Our Analysis: 3 Fallacies
The House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill this month threatening to ban TikTok unless its parent company ByteDance sells the app...
Although dialing up national security concerns was an effective tactic to marshal some consensus, that strategy still may not pass the legislation -- and it won't address the many security concerns that dog tech companies beyond TikTok.
The author contends that the House bill targeting TikTok is misguided and narrowly focused on national security, while ignoring the broader issue of data security reform in the U.S. The author suggests that the U.S. should adopt a precautionary approach to tech oversight, similar to Japan and some European countries, and create guardrails that apply to all firms operating in the country. The author builds some strong arguments by making several relevant points, but also engages in ad hominem and slippery slope fallacies.
1. ad hominem • The comparison of Congress's decision-making on trivial matters to its actions on TikTok serves to distract from the main issue of data security and the effectiveness of the proposed ban.
A Congress that can't decide whether tunafish or chicken salad is a better sandwich is trying to ban TikTok. That's a sign of its inability to do anything substantive.
2. guilt by association • The author invokes the emotional issue of anti-Asian discrimination, appealing to the readers' emotions on these separate issues and trying to associate them with the bill:
That is to say nothing of the message that it sends to people in the U.S. who have been rocked by increases in anti-Asian discrimination and the Department of Justice's China Initiative, which ended because of its controversial broad scrutiny of Chinese academics but which some lawmakers have sought to revive.
While these situations are lamentable, the author presents no evidence that the bill has anything to do with them. Their introduction in the text functions only to taint the bill by placing it in the context of these things.
3. slippery slope • The text suggests that the bill's approach to regulating foreign applications will lead to a slippery slope of negative consequences, such as discrimination and talent drain, without providing evidence for this inevitability.
This would create a highly subjective system that encourages targeting based on national origin and passports -- not the type of policy that attracts and retains the best and brightest international talent during an era of extreme competition for technical skills.
References
- Aynne Kokas (2024, Mar 29). A TikTok ban isn't what we need.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-03-29/tiktok-ban-congress-house-of-representatives
Disclaimer
Note that there being one or more apparent fallacies in the arguments presented in this article does not mean that every argument the arguer made was fallacious, nor does it mean there are not other arguments in existence for the same or similar position that are logically valid. Also note that checking for fallacies is not the same as verification of the premises the arguer starts from, such as facts that the arguer asserts or principles that the arguer assumes as the foundation for constructing arguments. For more about this, see our 'What is Fallacy Checking?'
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