alt Hacker NewsThis reminds me of the TikTok ban that lasted all of twelve seconds.
I’ve been using the internet for longer than I care to admit, and I’ve never seen anything like it.
It was like 300 million junkies all lost their drug supplier at the same time.
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> This reminds me of the TikTok ban that lasted all of twelve seconds.
That timeline has way more to do with the corrupt politicians than consumer behavior.
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Both in the sense that the original semi-bipartisan law should've been ruled unconstitutional [0], and also in how the Republican party turned around and broke portions of that law for months until Trump could ensure the assets were handed to his major donor buddy--and fixing none of the original PRC influence issues. [1]
[0] https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/banning-tiktok-i...
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/19/tiktok-deal-done-and-its...
That's literally what it was. These technologies are addicting. Is it as bad or the same as heroin? No. However, they are designed to be addicting.
> It was like 300 million junkies all lost their drug supplier at the same time.
No, it was not. It was actually nothing like that.
No babies were left to die because their parents were out searching for tiktok clips. I saw no people whoring themselves on the street just to see a few tiktok clips. I heard no stories of children stealing from their own family to get a few scrolls of tiktok. There was no people killing each other just to get a hit of tiktok.
Let's not trivialize something like drug addiction by comparing it to kids procrastinating by watching their TV phone app.
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> the TikTok ban that lasted all of twelve seconds
The TikTok ban successfully forced the sale of the US TikTok operations. I wouldn't be so dismissive of it.