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+--- Thread: US House passes bill: "Hey Tick Tock! Sell your CCP stakes or get out!" (/Thread-US-House-passes-bill-Hey-Tick-Tock-Sell-your-CCP-stakes-or-get-out)
US House passes bill: "Hey Tick Tock! Sell your CCP stakes or get out!" - Maxmars - 03-13-2024
From: aggregator Phone Scoop, and Associated Press.
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would force Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok within six months or face a complete ban on the app in the US. It would also grant the President the power to include other foreign-owned apps in the future. This specific bill (H.R. 7521, or the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act") moved quickly from proposal to vote, and received broad bipartisan support, passing 352 - 65.
I think this may be part and parcel of the recent assessment by US intelligence agencies that our upcoming elections were vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation (other thread), at least, I'm hoping that it's what really the point of the act.
TikTok, which has more than 170 million American users, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.
The lawmakers contend that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government, which could demand access to the data of TikTok’s consumers in the U.S. whenever it wants. The worry stems from a set of Chinese national security laws that compel organizations to assist with intelligence gathering.
To be completely honest, I thought most countries that demand information from such businesses get what they ask for anyway, and we would be lucky to find out about it.
But in principle, given how easy it is to "craft realities" with large numbers of 'casual' information consumers, I'm not surprised we should worry about such things.
RE: US House passes bill: "Hey Tick Tock! Sell your CCP stakes or get out!" - Maxmars - 03-14-2024
Addendum: TikTok CEO refuses to answer if Chinese government has influence over platform as Congress mulls ban
"Bytedance is owned by global investors, and about the majority of our investors are global investors," Chew said Thursday. "And then the rest is owned by the founders. So there's no CCP ownership."
Seems like splitting hairs when you are talking about China...
