TikTok Is Evil, But Banning TikTok Is A Greater Evil
It is alarming that the House of Representatives in Congress are once again attempting to justify banning TikTok from the eyes of millions of Americans 🇺🇸.
“This bill protects Americans and especially America’s children from the malign influence of Chinese propaganda on the app TikTok. This app is a spy balloon in Americans’ phones,” said bill author Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican. [...]
ByteDance intends to exhaust all legal challenges before it considers any kind of divestiture if the TikTok ban becomes law, according to people familiar with the matter.
“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually,” a TikTok spokesperson said Saturday. (Bloomberg)
There was at least one Congressman by the name of Ro Khanna willing to stand up to this silly bill, & he posted his response to the evil ban on TikTok & YouTube.
This TikTok ban was snuck inside a foreign aid package bill, making it unlikely that the US Senate will ignore it.
[House Speaker Mike] Johnson’s foreign aid plan includes three bills that separately fund Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region, along with a fourth bill that includes various GOP-backed foreign policy priorities as a sweetener to entice Republicans to back the proposal. Those provisions would include seizing frozen Russian assets to fund the Ukrainian war effort along with legislation that could result in a nationwide ban on the popular social media app, TikTok. (USA Today)
Unfortunately, @potus@threads.net will sign the bill into law if it clears the Senate.
Today, members of both parties in the House of Representatives voted to advance our national security interests by passing urgently needed legislation delivering critical support to Israel and Ukraine, and aid for those impacted by conflict and disasters around the world.
I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk. (President Joe Biden)
Suppose the United States 🇺🇸 can ban TikTok. In that case, they can ban any social networking site for any reason, including sites on the Fediverse originating from hostile nations like China 🇨🇳 & Russia 🇷🇺 (which would upset @admin@pravda.me, which is a top ranked instance).
The United States 🇺🇸 is not immune from electing another authoritarian as President, who would most certainly abuse this measure to silence online gatherings of dissidents who are upset about their policies.
Banning TikTok is a dangerous slippery slope that could enable Congress and the President to ban any site deemed a national security risk, leading toward further online erosions of liberty.
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