After Biden signed the Tiktok No Sale Prohibition Act, opinions in the United States were divided.
On the surface, this is a huge victory for the United States in the near future, but in the long run, the ban is likely to cut off the national fortunes and dragon veins of the United States. Not real dragons, of course, but dinosaurs.
Therefore, the American media is also a few happy and a few sad about this.
While some media outlets cheered, others began to worry about the people behind the TikTok ban and exposing the long-term power of these lobby groups to sell out the American state for personal gain.
Obviously, once the gas runs out, the United States is doomed.
The Washington Post belongs to those who will worry about the country and the people like this.
It doxxed the core behind the TikTok ban, a 34-year-old tech lobbyist Jacob Hellberg.
Two years ago, Herberg was a little-known tech industry consultant.
At that time, he convened a dinner party attended by members of the U.S. Congress and Silicon Valley tech insiders.
The members of this dinner were not as influential, but their ideas stinked like each other and hit it off.
At the heart of this group is the idea of abandoning the tech industry's long-standing ideal of borderless technology in favor of a tech system rooted in American nationalism and an alternative vision of confronting China.
In other words, at this time, it is not only the Chinese who realize that "science and technology without borders" is not true, but also the Americans recognize this serious problem.
The reason is also very simple. It turns out that the Internet technology companies in the United States are indomitable and invincible all over the world.
In order to expand its business interests, the U.S. government paved the way for globalization, while U.S. technology companies expanded globally and made a lot of money.
However, the good times did not last long, with the comprehensive rise of China, the United States not only could not compete with China in the area of high-quality production capacity, but even in the field of Internet technology, which is part of the so-called soft power of the United States, the United States gradually struggled, and was won by Douyin in the field of short video.
Not only Douyin, but also Shenyin (shein), Temu (Pinduoduo), Reelshort and even Xiaohongshu, etc., followed by a bunch of Chinese Internet products, can beat American Internet technology companies to the ground.
This made American Internet companies quickly realize that technology without borders would not work, and if there were no borders, the cities of the United States would be destroyed.
This made Herberg's kid echo the common anxieties of American politicians and Silicon Valley elites.
As a result, they successfully pushed through a series of restrictive legislation for Internet companies that was previously unimaginable in the United States, including the ban on Douyin in the United States.
Herberg's informal club and forum also became famous and hard to come by.
In an interview, Herberg said, "Things that have been controversial in Silicon Valley in the past...... It's actually a consensus now," he added. The era of technological "neutrality" is over.
Herberg's group has also "grown into a small group of a sport" who "unabashedly joined the American team."
The Washington Post also noted that declining returns on venture capital, a costly race to artificial intelligence, and China's increasingly sophisticated internet technology have prompted Silicon Valley-related industries to seek government contracts and embrace new American nationalist ideals. Former opponents of state regulation are now eager to worship and benefit from institutional regulation as a way for Internet companies to gain influence, compete with foreign competitors, and shape state policy.
Of course, the approach of Herberg and his ilk has also been criticized by American society, saying that the group's mission is self-serving and mainly dedicated to promoting their own technology, selling it as the perfect solution to the growing global threat facing the United States.
Ryan Carlow, a law professor at the University of Washington who studies AI policy, said the coalition's push to "ban entire social media platforms is a selfish speculation by Silicon Valley tech millionaires."
The reason is simple, many of the lobby gangs involved in this club have directly related corporate interests.
The owner of Herberg's first dinner was responsible for marketing and supplying a variety of technological defense technologies to the U.S. government. Their goal is to exaggerate the external threats facing the United States and sell their own solutions to the U.S. government.
Herberg defended that during World War II, the companies that made weapons for the U.S. government certainly benefited, but the country as a whole benefited greater, if not greater, from it.
To this end, Herberg lobbied everywhere. For more than a year, he has accepted every invitation to speak and television show, invited lawmakers to his Miami home and flown to Washington three times a week — each time repeatedly stressing that TikTok "should be seen as a tool of China."
Herberg's first dinner eventually became a secret conduit between some of Silicon Valley's most influential leaders and like-minded lawmakers.
Herberg also had a personal highlight. He bragged that he could get into the upper echelons of Congress and posted photos of him shaking hands with House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scullis, and the bill's co-sponsor, Conor Gallagher.
From the clash of civilizations to the clash of technologies
Herberg, of course, did see a deep problem.
The famous geopolitical scientist Huntington once put forward the theory of a clash of civilizations. It is believed that the future global conflict will be mainly a clash of civilizations.
Herberg sees this clash of civilizations unfolding not only on the geopolitical battlefield, but also in the most inconspicuous everyday applications of technology.
According to Herlberg, "perennial political warfare using everyday technology has become a universal feature of international politics."
Facts have also proved the correctness of Herberg's judgment.
Unlike in 2020, when the Trump administration tried to ban TikTok, the practice sparked an outcry in Silicon Valley, prompting investors in the app, including leaders at Sequoia Capital, to travel to Washington to try to protect it. Today, Herberg noted, few Silicon Valley leaders are defending a platform that has become a major competitor to some of their businesses. Sequoia's newly appointed leader, Rulov Botha, will also speak at the Helberg forum.
But did Herlberg's approach really protect America's interests?
Not necessarily.
It is clear from Herlberg's path that he represents not the national interests of the United States at all, but the interests of lobby groups and defense suppliers, and fits the nationalist ideas of some lawmakers.
Freedom and openness are the best interests of the United States. This is the most fundamental value of the entire American idea. Now Herberg and his ilk want to cut the root of the freedom and openness of the United States, and although they are happy for the moment, the result will inevitably be to cut off the national fortune and gas of the United States.
Not only the United States needs such openness and competition, but even China needs such openness and competition.
Although in the face of the unreasonable suppression of China by the United States, while China has taken necessary measures to protect its own interests, the only thing China has not done is to close itself off and protect it.
The tech race is brutal. But it is not China's nationalism that makes Chinese tech companies win in the competition, but China's technological strength and competitiveness, which in essence, is the intrinsic competitiveness of Chinese culture and civilization.
On the one hand, our culture makes our operation and management more in line with the laws of the market and more able to grasp the psychology of users, and on the other hand, our culture is open, inclusive, rich and diverse, close to the people and selfless, which also makes our Internet platform naturally attractive.
Only by learning and absorbing the advantages and strengths of other civilizations and transforming them into its own can a civilization continue to update and progress.
And once it encounters setbacks and headwinds, shrinks its head and fears, and closes itself off to "protect", this civilization will become more and more fragile, and thus withdraw from the river of history in the competition of civilizations.