SUBSTACKERS, YOU ARE IN THE CROSSHAIRS! Why The TikTok Ban Rocketing Through Congress Is So Dangerous
"Forget the furniture, the house is on fire."
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
If You Trust Joe Biden Or Donald Trump To Determine What Information You Can Have In Your Life, This Bill Is For You
“This bill is so dangerous, the moment so suddenly and unexpectedly grave, that we both recommend anyone who can find the time to call or write their Senators to express opposition to any coming Senate vote.”
By Matt Taibbi & Racket Staff
Racket News (3/18/24)
It’s funny how things work.
Last year at this time, Americans overwhelmingly supported a ban on TikTok. Polls showed a 50-22% overall margin in support of a ban and 70-14% among conservatives. But Congress couldn’t get the RESTRICT Act passed.
As the public learned more about provisions in the bill, and particularly since the outbreak of hostilities in Gaza, the legislative plan grew less popular. Polls dropped to 38-27% in favor by December, and they’re at 35-31% against now.
Yet the House just passed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” by a ridiculous 352-64 margin, with an even more absurd 50-0 unanimous push from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. What gives?
As discussed on the new America This Week, passage of the TikTok ban represents a perfect storm of unpleasant political developments, putting congress back fully in line with the national security establishment on speech. After years of public championing of the First Amendment, congressional Republicans have suddenly and dramatically been brought back into the fold. Meanwhile Democrats, who stand to lose a lot from the bill politically — it’s opposed by 73% of TikTok users, precisely the young voters whose defections since October put Joe Biden’s campaign into a tailspin — are spinning passage of the legislation to its base by suggesting it’s not really happening.
“This is not an attempt to ban TikTok, it’s an attempt to make TikTok better,” is how Nancy Pelosi put it. Congress, the theory goes, will force TikTok to divest, some kindly Wall Street consortium will gobble it up (“It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok,” Steve Mnuchin told CNBC), and life will go on. All good, right?
Not exactly. The bill passed in the House that’s likely to win the Senate and be swiftly signed into law by the White House’s dynamic Biden hologram is at best tangentially about TikTok.
You’ll find the real issue in the fine print. There, the “technical assistance” the drafters of the bill reportedly received from the White House shines through, Look particularly at the first highlighted portion, and sections (i) and (ii) of (3)B.
As written, any “website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application” that is “determined by the President to present a significant threat to the National Security of the United States” is covered. …
Link to article and 8-minute audio
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Tiktok banning = book burning
Who needs that pesky First Amendment guaranteeing free speech, right?
Congress marched to the guillotines = The People's Revolution
A much better equation. Power to the people!
As usual everyone, including Congress, and those talking about free speech are totally missing the point on Tic TOK and any other software from China! All of it collects data on the users, which goes back to China! The Chinese wrote the Software and control it, regardless of who might own the stock of the US company. TicTok in China is very different than the US, but it still tracts the individuals that use it, just like here!
A lot of the VPN’s are Chinese Software, want to use them?
What Congress should look at is country to country reciprocity…If we can own or operate in your country, you can do the same here….think we can buy up farm land or any land, etc especially near their military bases in China, I think not!