Had dinner with @JakePaul on Sunday. He changed my mind and convinced me to join TikTok. Yes, kids under age 16 shouldn’t be using it, but the fact is that many young voters are & we’re not going to change this country without winning. We can’t just talk about the importance of…
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) September 13, 2023
I keep getting told to take Ramaswamy seriously, but the evidence keeps piling up that Ramaswamy himself isn’t taking any of this too seriously. It would still be wrong, but understandable, if Ramaswamy had reached his decision after a careful examination of the security and privacy issues and consulting with experts, and had found some way to object to the platform’s indefensible targeting of adult material to users under 18, and so on. But no, Ramaswamy was convinced to accept the risk of Chinese spyware in his smartphone by a social-media influencer whose past controversies “included but [are] not limited to accusations of sexual assault, a federal search warrant exercised on his property, COVID-19 hoax claims, accusations of scamming his fans and a looting and trespassing incident in an Arizona mall.”
[Fundamentally unserious. Ramaswamy has very poor judgment in his contacts and his rhetoric already, having played footsie with 9/11 Truthers and other conspiracy theorists. He got depantsed by Nikki Haley on foreign policy in the last debate, and rather than spend some time speaking with serious thinkers on this and other issues, he’s taking advice from Jake Paul on whether or not to join TikTok — and making the wrong choice to boot. — Ed]
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