Dem
51
GOP
49
The social media platform TikTok is popular with young people, including some young voters. But TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, and is widely suspected of collecting as much data as possible from all its users and funneling it to the Chinese Communist Party. The U.S. government has forbidden federal employees from having the app on their government-issued phones because it is considered a security threat. For example, if a gay government employee who is in the closet watched a lot of gay-themed videos on the platform, that employee could be blackmailed. TikTok is also full of Chinese propaganda and suppresses content critical of the Chinese government.
Congress is working on a bill that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless ByteDance sells its U.S. operations to a U.S. company. Microsoft and Oracle are known to be interested in buying the U.S. part of TikTok, if the price is right. Joe Biden has said that he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk. The bill would allow the president to name certain apps as national security threats and have them banned from U.S. app stores. The app could also not use servers in the U.S. to host its videos. These measures would effectively destroy the app. Another good reason for Congress to ban TikTok is that China bans Facebook and Ex-Twitter.
TikTok has launched a counteroffensive, telling children how to contact Congress to oppose the bill. It said that Congress wants to ban TikTok. That's misleading at best, since what Congress really wants is to force ByteDance to sell the U.S. part of its business to an American company. The bill passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee 50-0 last week. The full House will vote on the bill this week. There is a good chance of it passing the full House and moving on to the Senate then.
It's interesting to see who TikTok has on its side lobbying to kill the bill, including the Club for Growth and Kellyanne Conway. Perhaps it is a coincidence that billionaire donor to the Club for Growth, Jeff Yass, owns a 15% stake in ByteDance and the Club for Growth is paying Conway for her lobbying. A girl's gotta eat, after all. But the push to force ByteDance to sell the American part of TikTok is bipartisan, with Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) leading the charge.
As you might expect, if Joe Biden supports something, then Donald Trump must necessarily oppose it. What makes this complicated for Trump is that he hates China and normally does not support China against the U.S. But his hatred for Joe Biden is greater than his love of the U.S. Consequently, Trump opposes the bill because it would help the enemy: Facebook. Trump said: "If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business." Trump has also called Facebook an enemy of the people. That is not necessarily so, as the DoJ could announce in advance that if Facebook tries to buy TikTok, it will file an antitrust suit to block the sale. Trump seems to have forgotten that as president he also tried to ban TikTok. He also doesn't seem to realize that having Microsoft or Oracle buy TikTok would weaken Facebook by creating a powerful competitor to it in the social media space. There is just so much Trump doesn't know. We could mention it every day. Actually, we kind of do. (V)