TikTok activity by Congress (see Lando Cotton) is all Sinophobia and lame anti-communism, because doesn’t everyone remember the Korean War that’s still not declared over.
And then there’s Trump’s flip flop amidst all his PRC holdings
State-owned industry is no different than oligarch-owned industry as you’ll find with Steve Mnuchin’s expected payday. It has nothing to do with national security and is more about individual American privacy protections.
Follow the fucking money, it’s all posturing in an election year with problematic consequences coming at the ballot box.
For those just catching up: US lawmakers have renewed efforts to crack down on TikTok over national security concerns related to its Chinese parent company ByteDance. The bill would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform is quickly spun off from ByteDance.
The bill, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week. And on Wednesday, it was passed in the House with 352 affirmative votes and just 65 representatives dissenting.
Many of the roughly 170 million Americans who use the app have raised concerns that banning TikTok could mean doing away with a platform that represents much more than a platform where young people can follow the latest updates about the Princess of Wales. It’s where they go to find connection, get entertained, seek information and earn a living. Some of those TikTokkers phoned their representatives in recent days to urge them to vote “no” on the bill, after the app alerted users to the potential ban.
There are other platforms available for TikTok users — nearly every major social media company has spent the past several years trying to mimic the app’s popular formula of snappy, shortform videos combined with a powerful recommendation algorithm that keeps users scrolling. However, shifting a loyal audience from one platform to another is easier said than done.
But TikTok will not be disappearing from Americans’ phones anytime soon.
www.cnn.com/...
Klon Kitchen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) #KochNetwork where he focuses on the intersection of national security and defense technologies and innovation.
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