Glenn S. Gerstell, an American lawyer, technology writer, and former government official, is asking whether anyone remembers the "Tik Tok Ban." Gerstell poses this question in the headline to an opinion column that was published in the July 28, 2025, edition of The New York Times. After posing this question in the initial portion of the headline, The Time's headline ends with a further, and plaintive inquiry: "Does Anyone?" I am referring, as I usually do, to the hard copy edition of the paper. Online, the headline is a bit different. The question, though, is definitely the same!
If you click the above link to "Tik Tok Ban," you will find a discussion made available on the website of the Brookings Institution. That discussion makes clear, with citations - and just in case you don't remember - that the United States Congress has passed a law that currently prohibits the Tik Tok website from operating in the United States. Despite that law, Tik Tok is continuing to provide such services at this time. And why? Tik Tok is still providing its services, despite existing federal law, because our current president says it's ok for them to do so. This is, of course, consistent with our current president's proclaimed approach to government (I, alone, can fix it).
Were our current president a "monarch," it would be just fine for him to wheel and deal with Tik Tok (and with the Chinese government), despite what the law says. However, just in case you have forgotten, the President of the United States is NOT a monarch. But if neither Congress, nor the citizens, whom Congress is supposedly representing, does anything about it when the president presumes, unilaterally, to "suspend" the laws that he has sworn "faithfully to execute," he might just as well be.
I never get tired of that Bob Dylan advisory that I have written about before. When our system of self-government is demonstrably breaking down, before our very eyes, there isn't any use waiting around for someone else to do something about it. We all need to remember Dylan's refrain: "I guess it must be up to me."
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/16/g-s1-23194/tiktok-us-ban-appeals-court
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