A bill that could ban TikTok has moved closer to passage. The bill quickly passed the House after being introduced and heads to the Senate.
V Spehar, who created TikTok and is behind UnderTheDeskNews, has been highly critical of attempts to ban it. He even went to Capitol Hill on behalf of TikTok last year when CEO Shou Zi Chew gave testimony before Congress.
Spehar said: "People have the energy to fight this, they are intelligent and they don't appreciate being put down. "It is unfortunate to know that half of the United States is being advised to shut up by our elected officials."
The bill would force ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, to sell the app if it becomes law. However, China has in the past expressed its opposition to the sale, and may do so due to new government export regulations that were implemented in 2020. It would be illegal for app stores to distribute TikTok, which is used by more than 170 million people. in the United States, if ByteDance does not sell it.
TikTok has encouraged its users to call their congressmen and express their opposition to the law. Some legislators' offices reported that they were receiving a excessive amount of calls from angry TikTok users. Stephen Colbert, a late-night host, made fun of this situation. Spehar reported that he received dozens of messages from TikTok users who were frustrated with Colbert's description of TikTok users as "grown-up millennials who still describe themselves as their Hogwarts house."
The recent threat to ban TikTok is not a joke for those who depend on the platform as a source of income. And some creators are surprised by how quickly Congress is working to limit TikTok's reach.
"This time the legislative process is going much faster," he said. Jules Terpak, a Gen Z tech commentator on TikTok.” Aside from TikTok sending very serious notifications to a subset of users about what is happening, the cultural moment simply seems more prominent because Biden openly said that he will enact it and people have become so comfortable with TikTok in their daily lives.
TikTokers have been rallying their followers to take the bill more seriously since it passed the House. Creator with 8,7 million followers Noah Glenn Carter posted a video lesson in which he urged his followers to call their senators. @cancelthisclothingco, another creator, posted a seven-minute video to his 1,4 million followers with hashtags like #tiananmensquare and #uyghur to "accelerate everything bad about China that China doesn't want anyone to know."
@cancelthisclothingco expressed: "I have a lot of followers, I can make a video that proves exactly what they are trying to say that we can't see." In just three hours, the video received 21.000 likes.
TikTok has stated that it has no debts to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that users can post content critical of China without problems. However, legislators such as Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) have expressed in extensive times that he attempted to create a narrative linking TikTok to the CCP in Congress, pressing Chew about his birthplace, political party, and citizenship (“I'm from 'Singapore,” Chew has responded several times).
Even though there is no evidence that the CCP spies on TikTok, ByteDance does access without authorization to TikTok data. Lawmakers fear that the Chinese government could use ByteDance to spy on American citizens because of this.
Sarah Philips, content creator and digital rights organizer at Fight for the Future, argues that Congress should take action against data brokers, not TikTok, if data privacy is the real issue.
"It's a xenophobic boast," Philips said. "All the discussions about the TikTok ban are essentially that, because those of us who understand data collection practices know that, due to the lack of digital privacy legislation, our data is for sale by any kind of others." technology companies.
On Wednesday, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) raised this point on the House floor before the bill passed 352-65.
The problem with our design here is that, although well-intentioned, it does not address the structural problem. What stops data from being taken, sold to a data broker, laundered, and yet ending up in the hands of a malicious actor?
Since 2020, when former President Donald Trump first called for a ban on TikTok unless it found a new owner, the US government has been trying to force ByteDance to sell the platform. Currently, Trump opposes the ban because he believes it would make Meta more powerful. However, the outpouring of support for the new bill and the speed with which it passed the House make TikTok's trajectory more uncertain.
Philips has been frustrated by the condescending attitude toward TikTokers. She mentioned several posts on X that mocked TikTok users for using euphemisms like “seggs” and “unalive” to navigate content filters.
Philips said many people would probably disagree if asked, "should the government have control over what technology can be used?" However, they are joining this campaign against TikTok because they believe the content is embarrassing.
The idea of banning TikTok has become a meme on platforms like X. Similarly, many TikTok users cannot understand why Congress is acting so quickly and effectively to create a new law to completely restrict TikTok.
Philips said, "The most bipartisan thing happening in Congress right now is endlessly funding the military and censoring an app they use to connect with other people." For example, the president is on TikTok.
Philips believes lawmakers' failure to take TikTok users' concerns seriously could have significant effects on the upcoming election. Philips said Congress could focus on a number of things right now, and this appears to be largely political theater. I have no idea how that wouldn't impact the election.
Terpak remains neutral on the app's possible ban, despite having more than 330.000 followers on TikTok.
"A lot of people on TikTok are insisting that the government has other things to worry about, but I think that's a misguided point of view considering how powerful technology is, especially the role of social media in our lives and how that It will continue to become more and more true.” in the years to come,” Terpak said. "A lot of people have a hard time appreciating and criticizing a platform, I think."
