Taylor Lorenz, Peter Van Valkenburgh: Why Banning TikTok Is Stupid and Unwarranted

Every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern, Zach Weissmueller and I go live at YouTube and Facebook with great thinkers, activists, politicians, entrepreneurs, policy makers and other people who are central to the world in which we live. We’re excited to present the audio of those conversations as bonus episodes of the Reason Interview podcast.

This time around, we talked with The Washington Post‘s Taylor Lorenz and Coin Center’s Peter Van Valkenburgh about bipartisan congressional efforts to ban TikTok and pass the RESTRICT Act, a far-reaching piece of legislation that imperils not just online free speech but all sorts of privacy rights and economic freedom, especially as they related to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Today’s sponsor:

  • The Reason Roundtable live in New York! For the first time, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Matt Welch, and Nick Gillespie will tape live and unfiltered in New York. Come out on Tuesday, April 25 to the historic Village Underground (130 West 3rd Street)! Tickets are $25, include entry to the afterparty, and are going fast. For more details and to buy tickets, go here!

A TikTok Ban Would Set a Dangerous Precedent. Live With Taylor Lorenz and Peter Van Valkenburgh

“Your platform should be banned,” Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R–Wash.) said to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew during her opening statement at a March 23 congressional hearing.

The attacks on TikTok were wide-ranging and bipartisan, with Rep. John Sarbanes (D–Md.) describing American children as “drowning” in TikTok’s powerful algorithm, Rep. Buddy Carter (R–Ga.) accusing TikTok of engaging in “psychological warfare” on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R–Texas) characterizing the platform as a weapon capable of “destroying our society from within.”

In the Senate, Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) sought unanimous consent to pass a bill banning TikTok in America, an effort blocked by Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), who warned Americans “to beware of those who use fear to coax Americans to relinquish our liberties, to regulate and limit our First Amendment rights” and said that Hawley’s bill would “emulate Chinese speech bans.”

Join Reason‘s Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern for a discussion of the looming TikTok ban with Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz, who’s spent much of her career covering the effects and cultural impact of social media apps like TikTok. Lorenz wrote in a recent column that lawmakers made a number of “claims that were inaccurate or at least debatable” during the TikTok hearing. For the second half of the conversation, Coin Center research director Peter Van Valkenburgh will join the stream to help analyze the details of the RESTRICT Act, a far-reaching Senate bill that aims to shut down TikTok in America but which a recent Coin Center report describes as creating “blanket authority, with few checks, to ban just about anything linked to a ‘foreign adversary.'”

Watch and leave questions and comments on the YouTube video above or on Reason‘s Facebook page.

Manson family killer Leslie Van Houten denied parole again by Calif. governor

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California Governor Gavin Newsom has denied parole for former Manson family member Leslie Van Houten.

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Van Houten, who is serving a life sentence behind bars for her role in the Manson family murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in August 1969, was recommended for parole by a panel in July, but Newsom has reversed that decision, just as he did last year.

Newsom insisted the evidence “shows that she currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison.”

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This is the 71-year-old’s fourth parole reversal.

Van Houten, who did not take part in the infamous murders at actress Sharon Tate’s home, testified at her trial that she and fellow Manson family member Patricia Krenwinkel held a pillowcase over Rosemary LaBianca’s head, gagged her with a lamp cord, and stabbed her to death.

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This March 29, 1971, file photo shows three female defendants in the Manson murder trial, from left, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten. All three, plus Charles Manson, were convicted of murder.
This March 29, 1971, file photo shows three female defendants in the Manson murder trial, from left, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten. All three, plus Charles Manson, were convicted of murder. Photo by file photo /AP Photo

She was sentenced to death in 1971 but the decision was overturned when the state abolished the death penalty and instead she was sentenced to life in prison with a possibility of parole in 1978. She has since applied for parole 23 times. A parole board first recommended Van Houten’s release in 2016, when then-California Governor Jerry Brown denied the request. He did so again in 2018.

Van Houten’s lawyer, Rich Pfeiffer, insists he will appeal Newsom’s decision.

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