The 2022 Winter Olympics are over and like a true American patriot, I celebrated the event by not watching a minute of it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m from the northeast and as a boy spent many hours figure skating on Van Cortlandt lake after it froze up during the winter months. I also  collected a chipped tooth and scar on my chin from The Bronx’s version of skeleton, which consists of shooting down a snow-covered hill at high speed on a sled, trash can lid, cardboard box, or whatever will do the trick while avoiding rocks (chin scar), dogs, traffic, chain link fences (tooth enamel), etc. As a result, I’ve always enjoyed watching winter sports (though I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that the skeleton guys would fold on some of the “tracks” I conquered as a boy). Thus, I’m embittered by the fact that somehow the U.S Olympic committee, ISO, China, Russia and NBC managed to host a worldwide extravaganza  that showed less principles, adherence to human rights, and displays of sportsmanship and concern for the athletes than the 1936 Nazi Olympics. And that’s not a high hurdle to beat.

Consider these points. First, the PRC is currently carrying out genocide against the Uyghurs and cultural genocide against the Tibetans and Mongolians. It is actively destroying the freedom of Hong Kong and threatening war against Taiwan.  (And read your history. Taiwan is not a part of China, nor was it ever. In the 17th century, Spanish and Dutch colonizers attempted to seize control of the island from its indigenous and immigrant inhabitants, which in turn attracted the attention of Chinese colonizers. Then the Chinese attracted the attention of the Japanese colonizers, who established control of what was then called Formosa during the first  Sino-Japanese war in 1895. After WWII, the United States technically took control of the final disposition of the island and has not relinquished its official rights in this regard. Note that at no time did anyone ask the Taiwanese about what they wanted (though they made it clear via numerous uprising and rebellions over the centuries that they wanted to take control of their own affairs).

The Nazis at least had the good taste to put their Jew-beating and Gypsy-chasing on hiatus during the 1936 games. And the SS refrained from yanking press members off podiums during the proceedings. By contrast, Xi Jinping’s behavior made Hitler look like a kindly Bavarian village burgomeister. Contrary to legend, Hitler was gracious enough to shake Jesse Owens’ hand after he won  gold against German competitors. Nor did Hitler retaliate against German athletes who lost against Owens. On the other hand, if you’re a Chinese athlete whose performance disappoints the creepy coaches who follow everyone on the Chinese team around, you’ll be ostracized during the event as you prepare for a future career competing for the PRC’s Olympic Janitorial team. Not to forget the Russians, who were allowed to attend the games despite the fact they’re working as hard as they can to trigger World War III while feeding 15-year-old girls dangerous heart drugs to help them win figure skating medals.

Nor did Hitler snatch the rabbi of Berlin’s largest Jewish Temple and force him trundle up the streets of Berlin with a torch to light the Olympic flame, as Xi Jinping did with that pathetic Uyghur sock pocket, cross-country skier Dinigeer Yilamujiang.  She didn’t medal, but rumor has it a grateful Chinese nation has provided her with free take out for a year and all the free abortions she wants in the future in the event she forgets that China feels Uyghur pregnancies are low on the PRC’s priorities list.

Some minor points worth mentioning are that Hitler provided yummy food for the contestants; the PRC, not so much. Accomodations at the Berlin Olympic village were described as “world class” and luxurious; the quarantine centers for athletes who contracted Covid 19 courtesy of Winnie the Flu were revolting. The stands at Berlin were packed, though admittedly there was a whole lot of sieg heiling and fuhrer saluting taking place. There were no audiences for the Peking events because the PRC had unleashed coldzilla on humanity and people were quite willing to stay safely away from each other; you never quite know what new nasty surprise the nation’s bats, pangolins, and virologists are going to spring on you. But NBC/MSNBC commentators were suitably obsequios to their Chinese hosts and Lord Haw-Haw would have been proud.

Now, there is some justice in this world. The “Genocide Games” as they will be remembered, were a ratings disaster and NBC lost money hand over fist on the entire disgraceful venture. But this doesn’t make up for the fact the PRC ruined an entire Olympic event for the civilized world and they deserve  to be punished. And I’ve figured out the perfect way to do it.

STOP USING TIK-TOK. TODAY.

In addition to ruining the Winter Olympics, here are nine other reasons to stop using Tik-Tok. 

• Tik-Tok is a privacy nightmare. Every proclamation and promise made in respect to its users’ privacy and information by ByteDance, Tik-Tok’s corporate owner, should be completely ignored. By PRC law, all companies must comply with PRC requests for information about any Tik-Tok user and if so instructed, does not have to tell its users they’re under surveillance.
• Tik-Tok is aggressively data mining the data stored on its server for the purposes of future blackmail and espionage. Those petabytes of text and visual data entering their servers everyday are being scanned for embarrassing, secret, and classified photos, videos, documents and related material. New data scanning systems assisted by AI will only allow Tik-Tok to become a more efficient data snoop.
• Tik-Tok is a  key component in the PRC’s “social credit system,” its massive program to crush dissent and freedom by using app-based access and surveillance to limit Chinese citizens’ ability to access goods and services if they fail to obey the diktats of the CCP. You Canadians should put aside your obsession with curling for a while and take note of what the Chi Coms are up to.
• Tik-Tok is an important ingredient in China’s Uyghur genocide. The program is used to track and imprison Uyghur resisters and the region’s  religious and intellectual leaders. It is also used to track women targeted for forced abortions, part of China’s efforts to deal with the Uyghur problem by reducing the number of Uyghurs. By using Tik-Tok, you are complicit in supporting genocide. Ditto for what’s happening to the Tibetans and Mongolians.
• Tik-Tok has recently bragged that it has reached one billion daily users, though all public pronouncements by the CCP about the country’s financial and operational figures should be assumed to be falsified to at least some extent. Still, there is no question that over the past several years the system has exploded in usage and popularity. Yet, the PRC is actively blocking and retarding the growth of Facebook, Instagram, and equivalent U.S. systems in China. What kind of idiots put up with this sort of one-sided business behavior? At the very least, the U.S government should insist on a policy of strict reciprocity. Why give the Chinese a monopoly on corrupting your child’s moral fabric and self esteem? After all, that’s what Facebook is for. The Trump administration threatened to shut down Tik-Tok and the PRC immediately took notice. Under Biden, the threat disappeared and the PRC has redoubled their data mining endeavors. But just because President Biden is cognitively impaired is no reason for you to act the same way.
•  Tik Tok is uninvestable. China does not allow companies not under the thumb of the PRC to buy positions in Chinese companies. What you can buy are shares in shell companies with HQs in places such as Cayman Islands, Barbados, The Bahamas, etc. If your Byte-Dance investment goes south (ask investors in Evergrande, China’s largest real estate broker how that’s working out for them), good luck receiving any reasonable recompense for your losses from the PRC. Maybe some coupons for some free side orders of kung pao chicken. (If you find that crack racist, please send me a video of your pain and suffering so I can enjoy your misery. But don’t use Tik-Tok.)
• Tik-Tok is poison for your child’s brain. Don’t take my word for it, take China’s. Within the country, Tik-Tok is referred to as Douyin, and kids under 14 are limited to 40 minutes usage per day and allowed to login to the program only between 6AM and 10PM. Kids under 18 are prohibited to playing online games only on Fridays, weekends, and holidays, between 8PM and 9PM.
• Tik-Tok creates a perverse incentive system to encourage children to promote or ignore topics (such as Uyghur genocie) by awarding or withholding likes, followers, and visibility to your kid’s account.
• The “success” of Tik-Tok is encouraging the CCP and PRC to extend their insidious social control model venues and people. Like Canadian truckers. If you want to attend the 2022 Winter Olympics, you must download an app called My2022. Based on a compromised technology loaded with well-known security backdoors, ostensibly, the app monitors safety, medical, and travel information, but everyone knows My2022 is simply Chinese spyware (the program has a one button (known informally as a “Trudeau Alert” feature that enables ratfinks to report political dissidents). This app should be tossed in the sewer alongside Tik-Tok.

To sum up, shutting down your Tik-Tok usage and banishing the app from your phone sends a message to the PRC and CCP that their behavior and threat to world peace and the rights of free nations is being monitored and will be resisted. It’s bad enough the world rewarded Vlad and the Russian kleptocracy and Xi and the CCP with the chance to strut and fret across the world stage a la Hitler and Munich. It’s bad enough we allowed the Chinese to threaten our athletes if they dared speak up about China’s evil behavior in between the schussing and luging.  The very least we can do is shut down access to our market to a piece of technology that masquerades as a combination of teddy bear and panda while functioning as Chucky, Friends Forever once it’s on your phone. And you’ll also be protecting your company’s secrets and privacy, as well as your own.

So go out there and do the right thing!