Biden Backs Bill That Could Ban TikTok: 'If They Pass It, I'll Sign It'

[brooklynite]

Source: Rolling Stone

CONGRESS WAS FLOODED with phone calls this week from angry teens opposing a bill that could potentially ban TikTok. President Joe Biden isn’t worried about the controversy. On Friday, he told reporters he plans to sign the legislation if it passes.

The statement comes as Biden’s likely 2024 opponent Donald Trump has started backing away from his past efforts to ban TikTok, and is now publicly defending the popular platform — a decision that some observers speculate could be related to a Republican megadonor’s financial interests in TikTok’s parent company.

Biden said Friday he would sign the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, should it pass through Congress. The bill would require TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell the viral video app within six months, or be blocked from being accessed in the United States.

“If they pass it, I’ll sign it,” Biden stated, according to CBS News. The legislation will move to the House floor for a vote next week, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) revealed on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday. The bill swiftly made it through the House Energy and Commerce Committee with unanimous support this week after being introduced on Tuesday.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/joe-biden-tiktok-ban-bill-1234984110/

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Jaime Harrison told me Tik Tok was an important tool to reach young voters.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

1. It's all because

Facebook, and X are hemorrhaging money and can’t compete.
I hope Biden does not sign it.

I like the openness of tik tok and like it isn’t a total right wing cesspool.

[getagrip_already]

2. Tik tok is so bot riddled its hard move around....

I created an account just play around and ended up with several hundred followers in a couple of weeks, all bots. They all w a need me to send them gift cards.

Unbelievable.

It was addictive though, until it became obnoxiously repetitive.

[RubyRose]

13. WTH? 😳

[SoFlaBro]

16. Tiktok is all shitty assed bots and trolls on some fuck shit. The whole goddamn shitheap sucks.

[samnsara]

3. How will I follow Good Boy Ollie??????

[Autumn]

4. I hope it fails. I would hate to lose TikTok. It's a great site.

[PortTack]

9. Same...lots of great content creators be it factual or fun

[VeryProgressive]

5. Biden in wrong on this one.

He really shouldn't support this legislation. I am surprised. He could lose some younger voters.

[womanofthehills]

17. Agree - also - not just younger voters

55% of Americans view TicToc.

[AZLD4Candidate]

6. Good. If China doesn't want its soft propaganda tool banned, it needs to stop banning and blocking everything

that reports on its crap. The CCP is the biggest hypocrite in this area.

Personally, after living there as long as I did, I believe all CCP things should be blocked, banned, or heavily restricted and regulated as security risks.

[CTyankee]

10. Much as I agree it is evil propaganda, we have a First Amendment. The ACLU would probably say "Fight bad speech with

good speech...don't censor." The government should not be telling us which speech is bad and should be censored and which is OK and can be published." It's an old, old argument and I thought that here, of all places, we would not see all this crying for censorship of ideas we don't like and are offensive.

[AZLD4Candidate]

12. Supreme Court has stated many times free speech is not absolute.

Tik Tok is a threat to national security as a foreign propaganda tool owned by an entity that has ties to a foreign government.

CCP doesn't want to do IPOs in the US because they know it would be subject to American regulators with means all books would be opened. Tik Tok is the same.

Free speech can be restricted on foreign entities with ties to foreign governments.

[CTyankee]

14. I understand. I am saying that the ACLU is often the one organization that will scrutinize government regulations.

I happen to agree with much of what you are presenting here. It is very serious. I once worked for the national ACLU (I was Aryeh Neier's executive assistant when he was national director). I attended all of the organization's national board meetings where policy was debated. I'd be very interested in knowing what they have to say!


Just found it here: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-raises-concerns-about-senate-bill-aimed-at-banning-tiktok

[AZLD4Candidate]

15. BTW, the bill doesn't ban tik tok. It forces a foreign company with ties to a communist regime that spies on people

to either sell to an American company so it can be regulated by American auditors (which the Chinese government refuses to allow if they want to bring one of their companies to the US) or the foreign company loses the privilege of doing business in the US. Its the same as saying "follow the laws we have or we revoke your business license."

Saying banning tik tok is Communist party propaganda. It's all over my wife's Chinese version of Tik Tok, douyin, with them saying "see, Americans hate us."

The ACLU should say nothing since it's an interstate commerce issue which the Constitution says Congress can regulate. Byte Dance is a foreign company being allowed to do business here.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. Lol kiss that youth vote goodbye

[MichMan]

8. Xi Jinping and the CCP agree

[progressoid]

11. Ban the second most popular app. That'll get you re-elected.

[getagrip_already]

18. Aheesh, its not a ban... its just cutting the cord to china

Its a sale.

From foreign oligarchs to domestic.

But it isn't a shutdown or ban.

[progressoid]

20. Then this concept needs to be marketed to Americans because most of the headlines say "ban"

It's literally in this OP and most stories. That's all they'll see. That's what this whole thing is going to be perceived by the public.

Regardless, I've asked this elsewhere, "why Tiktok and not other China based apps?"

For instance, CapCut is also owned by ByteDance, the same company that started TikTok. They are the 4th most popular Chinese app in the US (Tiktok is #2) Why does this law ignore them?

IMHO, its because the right wing has made TikTok their boogey man for a while now. They need a political win. This ban/sale/whatever you want to call it is a win for them and a kick in the crotch for Dems.

People, especially young people, like Tiktok. Half of their users are under 34. Pew Research said roughly 60% of the app’s news consumers are Democrats or Democrat-leaning. Fuck with it and you fuck with our re-election success.

Of course, let's not mention the irony of the President's campaign recently opening a Tiktok account.

Lawsuit: ByteDance’s CapCut app secretly reaps massive amounts of user data

The ByteDance-owned CapCut video editing app gathers significant amounts of private data, including facial scans, from its 200 million active users, generating huge profits and potentially allowing the Chinese government to access that data, according to a proposed class action lawsuit filed in an Illinois federal court.

...https://therecord.media/capcut-privacy-lawsuit-illinois-bipa-bytedance-china

[ificandream]

19. I don't want Steve Mnuchin to buy TikTok.

He'll make it into a Twitter/Musk clone. It's bad enough Twitter has been ruined.