Why Do All the New Technologies Make Us Sad?

Shouldn’t tech make life better?

Photo by Adrian Swancar on Unsplash

Of all of the ways in which Donald Trump has stretched the power of the executive branch, the way he’s handled the TikTok ban has been one of the weirdest.

It hasn’t gotten much attention because, well, look around, but the whole episode has been a very strange one.

Trump, of course, got the ball rolling for a ban during his first term. The Biden administration agreed, and Congress passed a rare bipartisan law (by overwhelming majorities) to force TikTok’s parent company to either sell the platform or shut it down.

Then Trump changed his mind. He says he did so because TikTok helped him win the 2024 election; others speculate that he was helping out a wealthy donor who owns a big chunk of the company. He began promising supporters that he would save the app he had once vowed to eliminate from Americans’ phones.

All this led to a weird moment in January, which you’ll remember if you use TikTok or spend time around teenagers who do. After a failed attempt to get the Supreme Court to declare the ban unconstitutional, TikTok went dark on January 18, two days before Trump’s inauguration. But Trump assured the company that he would issue an executive order reversing the ban, and the service went back online just before…