The TikTok Ban

Well, hey there! Welcome to a new week. Ready to light this candle?

I kind of had a lazy Saturday (which I needed because I’ve been pushing hard lately)… and Sunday I started the process of re-doing our utility room. We bought this house and I remodeled the inside about 2 years ago, but some thing I just never touched. The utility room was one of them. So, the way to get it done… is to start. 🤪

Anyway, this week’s issue of the newsletter is going to dance around a bit.

I want to talk about that TikTok ban. And what it means.

And we’re also going to get a little nerdy. Because, when’s the last thing you looked at what version of PHP your site is running?

Why would you ever want to? 🤪

Well, we’ll get into that, too.

So, let’s dive in…

The TikTok Ban – And What It Means

If you haven’t heard yet, the US House of Representative last week voted to pass a supposed “TikTok ban”. It still needs to pass the Senate… and Biden has said he will sign it. So, at this point… there is indeed a pretty good chance that this ban will become law.

This is definitely something that is relevant for all of us online.

Now, I don’t really like to get political in this newsletter. This isn’t really the place for something like that. But, sometimes politics affects what we do. So, I will just say…

I am most definitely against this TikTok ban.

Look, I hate TikTok. I think it does a lot of damage to people and kids. I think China does use it to subvert the US population. I think it damages kids in multiple ways. Frankly, I think parents that allow their kids to use TikTok are being short-sighted and ignorantly putting their kids into harms way in multiple ways.

But, a government ban is not how to fix this. Because, it wouldn’t be a fix at all.

All that would be happening is establishing legal precedent for the government to come in and start banning apps and websites. All they need to do is say it is for national security reasons, and it comes down. Say it is being controlled “directly or indirectly” through a foreign adversary… and they can force the web host to shut it down.

Of course, they’ll say that isn’t the case. But, the language is there. This ban will be a slippery slope.

Not only is it a slippery slope into breaches on free speech on the internet, but it also just helps enforce the monopolies of Google and Meta. Two companies our government is deeply involved with. You really think Google and Meta don’t do the exact same thing TikTok is doing? Of course they do! But, the beneficiary there is the US government, so that’s OK.

There’s also another factor…

Love it or hate it, but a lot of people make money with TikTok.

There are people who make money helping businesses with strategy on TikTok. There are businesses that advertise on TikTok. Many, many small businesses use TikTok as a vehicle to grow their businesses.

And now the US government is going to come in and either force TikTok to be sold… or ban it? That is going to be a major hit on thousands of small businesses.

So, here’s what it means…

For one, I will always stand firmly against any threat to free speech. I am against censorship. I am damn near an absolutist on that point. The last thing we need is some Trojan Horse bill that uses one issue to slip in something that will be horrible for free speech.

Secondly, this is yet another reason why you absolutely cannot depend on any external services for your business. I call this digital sovereignty.

These social media companies are bad enough on multiple fronts. But, it is also bad when you can get arbitrary legal bans which suddenly rug-pull thousands upon thousands of small businesses.

So, as has been said many, MANY times by now… don’t build your business on “rented land”.

You don’t own these companies and platforms. You don’t own the followers. You don’t own the account. It can be taken away at any time.

Whether you get deactivated by the algorithm or platforms get banned… you clearly can’t predict when these assets are going to get removed.

So, don’t spend a lot of time trying to build them up.

Sure, you can use them. But, diversify. And set things up so that if one of them were removed, it can’t break your business.

Build your home base. Make it awesome. Put it on WordPress if you want a nice, free open source platform that you can do whatever you want with.

Build your own “land”. And do with it what you want. And say what you want on it. It your’s.

WordPress Quick Bits…

TutorLMS To Stop Offering Lifetime License. Themeum is going to stop offering a lifetime plan starting on March 25th. Here’s the announcement. They will continue to support and honor all lifetime plans bought before that time. As I’ve said before, lifetime plans are ultimately not good for business unless there’s a solid strategy in place. And it costs money to maintain and develop software. Case in point, TutorLMS just got version 2.6.2 released which squashed a bunch of bugs. That kind of thing takes manpower.

BeeHiiv gets tagging (finally). In some non-WordPress news, BeeHiiv (the popular newsletter service) has just introduced subscriber tags. About time! You can now segment subscribers, use tags for segmentation, and use tags to trigger automations. While I have already moved off of BeeHiiv and back to FluentCRM, tagging was one feature I really missed when I was over there. So happy to see they’ve built it.

MemberMouse 3.0 Officially Launched. For me, this is another case of me being happy to watch software I no longer use get better. In fact, when I left MemberMouse, I kinda bashed them over the coals. But, version 3.0 is a big leap for them. Because MemberMouse is now fully open source and GPL-compliant. That’s huge… because previous versions contained encrypted code. They’ve also brought the billing back “in house” rather than depending on their servers (and it would stop the moment you stopped paying them). This is welcome news… and I look forward to checking out MemberMouse 3.0 before too long.

Uncanny Automator Upgrades to 5.6. The new version of Uncanny Automator now includes custom delays on automations, QR code generation, date & time integration (and being able to use plain-English to convert dates), WooCommerce post loops, and more. Check out the announcement here.

Elementor Released Temp Login Plugin. The team at Elementor.com has released a free Temporary Login plugin that creates a temporary URL for easy access to WordPress admin without a username and password. Useful, perhaps, for giving temp admin access to people helping debug issues on your site.

WP Manage Ninja adds TikTok support. The WP Manage Ninja plugin has been upgraded to 3.13.0 and this version now gets a TikTok feed. Meaning… you can now embed your TikTok content right on your website. Check out the full announcement, because there is more to this version.

WooCommerce Subscriptions Get More Expensive. The popular WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin has gotten even more expensive… now increasing to $279 per year. Frankly, I think it is ridiculous. I use this plugin. It is very useful. However, it definitely has desired functionality missing and it isn’t all that user-friendly. The fact they think this plugin, as it is currently being developed, is worth more than almost every other full membership subscription plugin on the market…. is beyond me. It is too expensive for what it does. Period. But, you know what? It is open source and GPL-licensed. So, there’s that.

What Version of PHP Are You Using?

Alright, nerd time. But, I promise, this one isn’t too nerdy. 🤓

WordPress is programmed with PHP. That’s the programming language it uses. And PHP is ultimately software. And, like most software, it has versions to it. And newer versions are usually better.

Ya with me so far? 😉

One of the issues is that a lot of people are still using old versions of PHP. Many web hosts are still allowing older versions of PHP because some people are still running software which isn’t compatible with newer versions of PHP.

So, what’s the harm?

Well, a couple things…

• Older versions of PHP are no longer supported. Which means no more security updates. That obviously opens up potential security holes.
• Older versions of PHP are usually slower. For instance, moving from PHP 8.x is going to give better site performance than running PHP 7.x.

Check out this image on the active support for versions of PHP…

So, we’re at a point where even PHP 8.1 is no longer getting active support. In 8 months, even security support for it will go away.

Yet, a lot of sites are still running PHP 7.4. Or less.

How do you check? Well, you can check with your web host. Another option is to go into WordPress admin and go to Tools > Site Health. Go down to “Server” and look at the PHP version.

Frankly, I think you should be using PHP 8.1 or higher.

But, many people are “flying blind” on this and have no idea this is even a thing.

Many web hosts allow you to upgrade with a simple flick of a dropdown. But, here’s the thing…

Some sites are running plugins or themes that are not compatible with PHP 8.x. So, if you upgrade PHP for your site and something breaks, you immediately know…. you’re running something old and it isn’t being maintained well anymore.

If that’s the case, you really do need to find a way to stop using that software. These days, any plugin or theme that is not PHP 8 compatible is just broadcasting that it isn’t actively maintained properly any longer. And it is time to move on if they’re not going to maintain it.

Want my help in checking this out for your site? No problem. Just hit me up. I can help you out.

And for Concierge clients, I am making the rounds to upgrade PHP for all of you as required. I’ll be sure to reach out to you if I find that your site isn’t compatible.