The Biden-Trump war on TikTok and ByteDance: What do skeptics really think?
Both the Biden and Trump administrations have contemplated their own efforts to ban or force a sale of TikTok despite Trump’s opposition to such policies. In 2020 Trump issued an executive order banning the sale or creation of Chinese-owned apps. The efforts were halted due to legal obstacles, and since taking office, Biden revoked and replaced the orders with a new one, creating a framework to determine the risks of such apps.
Amber Estenson, a 42-year content creator also known as “That Midwestern Mom,” went viral on TikTok two years ago when she uploaded one of her quirky Minnesota “salad” concoctions. She was made a famous by the ingredients of Snickers bars, apples, Jell-O and Cool Whip.
TikTokers use their platform to give back. William McCoy, who goes by Izzy White, is a former drug dealer and ex-felon from Baltimore. He said he helps the homeless in his community.
Lawmakers from both parties have thrown their support behind a bill that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to divest the app within six months of the law’s enactment or face a nationwide ban.
The reassurance that TikTok uses a separate entity from ByteDance to store American user data hasn’t been enough to convince many of its skeptics.
Hiding Silicon Valley with Spontaneously Exploiting the Internet: a House Appropriate Resolution on a Privacy-Violating Measure
The bipartisan measure was unanimously approved last week by the House Energy and Commerce committee. Under a process that requires two-thirds of the House to pass, it is coming to the floor on Wednesday.
The legislation could not be used against American companies in social media or other internet-related industries, as was stressed by the chair of the committee who introduced it. He said that the content of speech was only controlled by foreign adversaries.
The app has been used to target journalists and interfered in elections according to a classified and unclassified national security assessment. Top officials from intelligence and national security agencies conducted a classified briefing on their analysis for all House members on Tuesday.
Prominent TikTok creators question the bill. “It’s unclear that this bill is going to actually protect Americans, but I don’t think that’s really the goal,” says Charlotte Palermino, CEO and founder of skin-care brand Dieux, a popular creator on TikTok and other platforms. “I find it to be very silly, but I think that it’s a nice encapsulation of American politics today, where we have people that do not understand technology trying to regulate it.”
“You had member offices being deluged with calls, you know, teenagers crying and one threatening suicide and one impersonating one of my colleague’s sons,” he said. “That, to me demonstrates how the platform could be weaponized in the future.”
If foreign owned apps are deemed to be a national security risk, the president has the power to address them. It also makes it possible for users to download their own data and switch platforms.
Illinois Democrat, Raja Krishnamoorthi, is the ranking Democrat on the House Select committee on China and helped write the bill. He pushed back on the company’s argument, telling NPR, “There’s no first amendment right to espionage, there’s no first amendment right to harm our national security.”
The company stresses that it has invested its own money to set up a firewall in an effort dubbed “Project Texas” to address data privacy concerns and keep users’ data in the U.S.
Comments on Donald Trump’s Tweets on TikTok: A Demographic Attack on the Economic Crisis in the U.S. Social Media
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, proposed a ban back in 2020 when he was in the White House. He does not think the House bill is a good idea.
When he served as president he vowed to ban the social media app. According to Trump in an interview with CNBC on Monday, he opposed the ban because he thought it would cause people to leave his platform in order to stay safe.
There’s a lot of good and there is a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people along with a lot of the media,” he said.
Despite low unemployment and falling inflation, TikTok is full of viral videos bemoaning the U.S. economy. The termSilent Depression is used in one popular group of posts. The posts falsely suggest that the country is in worse shape today than it was in 1930. The posts were reported by my colleagues Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek.
Sen. Rand Paul and the Israeli-Palestinian Correspondence in the Light of a “TikTok” Attack
After Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack, TikTok flooded users with videos expressing extreme positions from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, tilted toward the Palestinian side, a Wall Street Journal analysis found. The Journal reported that a lot of people stirred fear. The old Osama bin Laden letter was praised in videos in November.
On Monday, the top U.S. intelligence official released a report saying that the Chinese government had used TikTok to promote its propaganda to Americans and to influence the 2022 midterm elections. The report warned that China could try to influence the presidential election and cause U.S. societal divisions.
If there is success with the bill, President Joe Biden will sign it.
The House bill is not a surety in the Senate. And even if it passes Congress, it would likely face big legal challenges.
Legislation is at the beginning of that chamber, since there is no companion bill yet. Senate rules can make it difficult to get enough support to clear it, even if one is introduced. Just one senator can put a hold on legislation to keep it from advancing quickly.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has indicated he could be willing to do just that. He told The Washington Post prior to the House vote that he would block any bill he believed to violate the Constitution and said Congress shouldn’t “be trying to take away the First Amendment rights of [170] million Americans.”
Lobbying for the Betterment of Children: Sens. Josh Hawley’s Effort to Pass a Ban on TikTok
A long legal process could leave room for doubts — and lobbying money — to seep in. In the Senate last year, there was an attempt to ban TikTok just before the CEO testified in the House. Despite early excitement about the measure, it slowly fell off the radar as opponents lodged their critiques. It didn’t make it through the chamber.
The Senate should take up this bill immediately, as evidenced by the comments made by Sen. Josh Hawley after the House vote.
The chair and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee are looking forward to working together to pass this bill after the strong bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives.
It’s significant that Warner is willing to get behind the House bill, given that he was the lead sponsor of the RESTRICT Act. Warner’s support for the new House legislation shows he’s willing to pursue other paths to deal with the threats he perceives from TikTok’s ownership.
Ed Markey has advocated for his own online privacy legislation for children. “From Meta to Amazon to Discord, US-owned companies are preying on children & teens for profit. We do not need a ban on TikTok to fix their practices. Passing my COPPA 2.0 is the answer.”
What the RESTRICT Act Can Tell Us About Free Speech and Government Power: Schumer, Massie, and Kaluza-Klein
Chuck Schumer has not made a determination about the path the bill could take. Schumer said simply in a statement after the House passed the bill that “The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House.”
Several supporters of the bill stressed that it was not an all out ban, but an incentive to force Divestment so that TikTok can separate its ties to China.
Both sides of the aisle voiced their concerns about the bill. Critics fear the bill will be an ineffective solution to real national security concerns, while coming with unacceptable limits on free speech and government power.
The president has the power of deciding what Americans can see on their phones and computers, said Rep. Thomas Massie.
Although Chew faced bipartisan grilling, some Democrats in particular expressed reservations about an all-out ban. And despite the early push from a group of powerful lawmakers, the RESTRICT Act ultimately fizzled out amid a strong lobbying campaign by TikTok and Republican concerns about granting too much executive branch power over the private sector.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said she worried the bill could be used to force the sale of other social media platforms, particularly mentioning X, which is now owned by Elon Musk.
But Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove noted that Chinese influence operations are not restricted to TikTok. In November 2023, Meta announced that it had removed a massive Chinese influence operation from its platforms that had targeted the US. Smaller networks targeted users in India and Tibet.
Palermino sees TikTok Shop as a valuable tool for small businesses and says shuttering TikTok would have a negative short-term effect on Dieux. Losing that would be hard, she says. While she’s confident Dieux could pivot to focus on other platforms, she suspects a TikTok ban could seriously impact other independent and up-and-coming brands within the United States in a big way. It will hurt their business.
The law must clear the Senate in order for President Biden to sign it. It’s too soon to say if the House’s legislation will succeed or failure, as several other anti-TikTok efforts in the Senate have stopped.
Can Social Media Users Shut Down an App Store to Enforcing National Security? A Study of TikTok’s Implications for Russian and Chinese Cybercriminals
Shutting down a social media platform in order to ensure national security is something that can only be done if there is a huge threat, according to legal experts.
170 million Americans have downloaded TikTok and there is no way to get them to stop. If TikTok were removed from the app store, users wouldn’t be able to get any more software updates. If the app were not to have the ability to update frequently, it would be difficult to use because of the many issues that would crop up.
If Biden signs the companion bill into law, there is a six-month time limit before it can be challenged in court.
People could turn to virtual private networks, or VPNs, to shield their location and get past restrictions. In Russia and China, government have banned many popular internet apps and services.
The plan was not approved by the national security officials in Washington because of their investigation into TikTok’s ties to Beijing.
Mnuchin is back in Wall Street after his government stint, having announced earlier this month he would invest more than $1 billion into troubled lender New York Community Bancorp along with other investors.
Bytedance has pushed back on those claims, saying it has not received a request from China to access the data of Americans and would not share it if asked.
The TikTok ban wouldn’t play out: a comment on Mike’s suggestion for the app store in the House of Representatives
A bill that could force the Chinese owners of a popular app to sell it was passed in the House by a large margin.
Makena suggests going to the office. (Really.) Mike believes in the benefits of Ener-C powdered vitamins drink mix. Kate Knibbs had earlier recommended AmericanFiction, which just won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay.
Source: How a TikTok Ban Would Play Out
The Makena Kelly Show at GadgetLab: Radio, Podcasts, and RSS Feeds for the Main Hotline and Twitter Stories
Makena Kelly can be found on social media @kellymakena. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is a fighter. There is a main hotline atGadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). The theme music is by Solar Keys.
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