


If you haven’t used a VPN before, today is a great day to learn how since we seem to be driving full speed into authoritarianism. The brave citizens of Hong Kong appear to need to remove their SIMs and use a VPN, whereas people in India seem only to need to take out their SIMs. Now, there seem to be conflicting reports on whether TikTok actually uses your IP address to locate you. Is this going to be a huge pain in the ass? Yep, it absolutely is. Wait, what? Yes, it would appear that TikTok is using the region code at the front of your phone number to determine where you are. The first thing you’re going to need to do is take out your SIM card. This assumes you have the app, and if you don’t, scroll down to the next section for a guide on how to circumvent your phone's app store. Regardless of whether you have an iPhone or Android phone, you’re going to need to trick the app into thinking you’re not in the U.S. Anyway, here’s how to get back on TikTok. Trump's ban on TikTok goes into effect this Sunday because “national security.” Remember when only authoritarian countries banned popular apps? Well, that hasn’t changed, but the executive branch’s interpretation of the first amendment certainly has. Update (September 22, 8:39AM): There is still a lot of confusion around the deal, but now TikTok's owner ByteDance is saying that, no, actually it will retain "100 percent" ownership of the social video app, directly contradicting a joint statement from Oracle and Walmart. Update (September 28, 1:00PM): A judge has postponed the ban once again.
