The House passed a bill that will allow the President to ban TikTok without an ownership change. Opponents of the legislation warned that it will give the executive a massive amount of power to control online discourse. The bill now heads to the Senate. President Joe Biden says he will sign the deal if it reaches his desk.
The “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” introduced by GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher and Democratic Rep.Raja Krishnamoorthi, would order TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to divest its shares from the company within six months or face an effective ban in the US.
The bill passed the House 352 – 65 opposed. The bill had bipartisan support, with 197 Republicans and 155 Democrats voting for it. Proponents of the bill, such as Rep. Elise Stefanik, argue Beijing uses TikTok to influence young Americans. The New York Congresswoman said she co-sponsored the act because of “TikTok’s attempt to mobilize young Americans on behalf of the [Chinese Communist Party].”
Critics of the bill argue that it was rushed and will grant the President too much power. The bill was reportedly drafted with “technical support” from administration staffers and passed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously last Thursday with bipartisan backing.
Florida Republican Matt Gaetz posted on X, “Banning TikTok is the right idea. But this legislation was overly broad, rushed and unavailable for amendment or revision. This is no way to run a railroad (or the internet).”
Congresswoman Ilhan Oman (D-MN) explained there were constitutional concerns. “Not only are there 1st amendment concerns, this is bad policy,” she said to explain her vote against the bill.
Thomas Massie (R-KY) slammed the bill as a “trojan horse” for censorship. He points to sections of the legislation that allow the President to ban websites. “The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps,” the Congressman posted on X. “The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the “foreign adversary.”
The so-called TikTok ban is a trojan horse.
The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps.
The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the “foreign adversary.”https://t.co/iKtAQFGeQH pic.twitter.com/P26hEbzQrf
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 12, 2024
According to a press release put out by Rep. Gallagher’s House subcommittee on China, The law “establishes a process for the President to designate other foreign adversary controlled social media applications – as defined by statute – that shall face a prohibition on app store availability and access to web hosting services in the United States unless they sever ties to the foreign adversary-controlled company.”
“The President may exercise this authority if an application presents a national security threat, has over one million annual active users, and is under the control of a foreign adversary entity, as defined by statute,” it added.
The bill now heads to the Senate. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did not commit to bringing the legislation to a floor vote. If it does pass the Senate, Biden pledged to sign the bill into law.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
The argument goes that the Palestinian / Israel bias of videos on tiktok is different than on western controlled media. How fishy, clearly western CEO policy is biasing the narrative. So we’ll ban anything not dominated by western biases.
Do you think those countries dont ban US social media?
China, Russia, and others do it.
It’s a two way street.
No, it’s a one way steet with a cul de sac at the end: Authoritarian Hellhole Court.
Yes, Russia and China have censorship. But no need to rush to be just like them, genius!
But we’ve made so much progress already, moving to the right and then moving way farther to the right.
For Elise Stefanik, it’s all high-road stuff, protecting the children.
That means sites like RS, Scheerpost, and others, are at risk of being censored. Big Brother is just around the corner.
Im not familiar with any of those sites but since you are concerned, im sure those are anti US sites.
Therefore, good news. 👍
The fools on the hill see the sun going down, but the eyes in their heads see the world spinning ’round…
No!, Big Brother is here, now.
Big Brother was first in the United States,
And, then, the World.
My offer of proof or evidence:
Please read the book Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden
Watch the video, The Good American.
Other reading and investigation:
1. The Power Elite, by C. Wright Mills; 1956
Mr. Mills calls attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the military, corporate, and political elements of society and suggests that the ordinary citizen is a relatively powerless subject of manipulation by those entities.
2. Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America
by Martin Gilens, 2012
A current, updated support of Mr. Mills thesis, which brings to bare not only current, updated facts, events and persons, but also supports the thesis with numbers, statistics, graphs, diagrams including, but not limited to, personal income, voting records, economic policy’s and programs and governmental actions and laws.
3. A Nation of Sheep,
by William J. Lederer, 1961
Lederer supplies some of the evidence behind the stories in that impressive and frightening record of American diplomacy and foreign aid in operation in southeast Asia. This is an appalling indictment on every level:- governmental — military –diplomatic — economic — operational. The press and other media of communication do not escape. But in final analysis, the blame is the gullibility, the apathy, the indifference of the great American public — “”the nation of sheep””. We are fed misinformation, by government, by the press. We are headline readers — and fail to read through to the kernel of the news which able correspondents may have cloaked in hearsay and indirection. In this book, Lederer reveals the kinds of frauds we have swallowed whole:- the Laos fraud, the facts we are not told about Formosa, about Korea, about Thailand. We like to think that people are enjoying a better life because our millions have been poured into their lands – so we are told that is so. We don’t hear about the graft and greed at top level, the untouched poverty at the base; we don’t hear about dissatisfaction with the governments we support, about the fallacy of reasoning related to the foreign student program, the deliberate lies fed us under guise of translation of interviews. Government for almost a decade by misinformation, no information, secrecy where it cloaked inadequacies, has produced gigantic waste and mismanagement of our foreign aid program. Unless we, the people, insist on a change, take action personally to follow through …
4. War Is A Racket, by Smedley D. Butler; 1935 War Is a Racket is a speech and a 1935 short book, by Smedley D. Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient. (The first, and, for a very long time, the only two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor.)
dennis hanna
Any ban negatively impacting China or Russia is a NO NO for the anti America crowd here.
Criticism of our government is not anti-american. What people are worried about is using the pretext of “foreign controlled adversary application” to stifle online discourse and information. And I am aware other governments use this pretext to stifle dissent among their own populations too.
nailed it, what
There’s a clip going around of Senator Cruz, questioning why TikTok doesn’t have the same content in both the US and China. TikTok’s Singaporean CEO answers that TikTok is not available in China. Ted Cruz gets punched in the teeth but keeps going foaming at the mouth, genocidal on China.
Bipartisan ban = fascism. Hillary in 2011 said U.S. is losing the information war.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/hillary-clinton-claims-al-jazeera-is-winning-an-information-war-that-america-is-losing/
When you can’t control the narrative, ban it!
Speaking of al Jazeera: (sorry it’s CNN)
‘The letter also noted that the company’s style guide “reveals AJ+’s intention to influence audience attitudes with its reporting” with policies such as calling the Israeli Defense Forces the Israeli army instead of the IDF and not using the words terrorist or terrorism. Al Jazeera did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
“Journalism designed to influence American perceptions of a domestic policy issue or a foreign nation’s activities or its leadership qualifies as ‘political activities’ under the statutory definition… even if it views itself as “balanced” or aims to balance reporting by other journalists,” said the letter from the chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, Jay I. Bratt. ‘
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/16/media/al-jazeera-foreign-agent/index.html
There is nothing defensive about European style colonial genocide in Palestine.
https://youtube.com/shorts/k6smfruHDNs?si=LkNDuh4REuCdVuRh
🤷🏽♂️
The Republican-“led” (by a whisker) US House is far better at playing house than at leading it.
The New York Congresswoman said she co-sponsored the act because of “TikTok’s attempt to mobilize young Americans on behalf of the [Chinese Communist Party].”
Yes, but aren’t our children raised by, mainly, American parents? Are young Americans watching something on TikTok that will automatically erase their upbringing? This is an insult to young Americans and parents in general.
Which generation are you referring to…? The younger generation appears to be raised by parents as well as mainstream media & social media…!
my daughter is approximately 40 years old.
i think that my granddaughter is somewhere near the 20 year old mark.
and i still have a mama who is probably 83 or 85 or so.
4 generations all in the same house.
oh and never mind my wife whom i can’t seem to get rid of.
what
Banning TikTok which is very popular in US, but keeping Whatsapp and Facebook which are NSA fronts to keep spying on US public not to mention the rest of the world…!
NSA co-creator of the Google…
I wouldn’t be surprised…!
Congress has for decades made it Congresses’ job to hand over power to the executive in violation of the structure set up by the Constitution – a document dead in all but name. The primary cause of this dereliction is cowardice – pure and simple.
Stupid people doing stupid things. Time to reincarnate Joe McCarthy.
with abject servility and proactive submission to the White House….with SCOTUS turning blind(bought)eye?
Blind Eye