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Bipartisan Bill Could Force ByteDance To Divest TikTok (bbc.com) 49

Posted by BeauHD from the third-time's-the-charm dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A group of US lawmakers has introduced a bill that would require Chinese tech giant ByteDance to sell off the popular video-sharing TikTok app within six months or face a ban. For years American officials have raised concerns that data from the app could fall into the hands of the Chinese government. A bipartisan set of 19 lawmakers introduced the legislation on Tuesday. TikTok called the bill a disguised "outright ban."

In a statement announcing the bill, the lawmakers said "applications like TikTok that are controlled by foreign adversaries pose an unacceptable risk to US national security." The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest, or it would be blocked from the app store and web hosting platforms in the US. TikTok has previously argued against divestment, saying a change in ownership would not impose new restrictions on data use. [...] The House Energy and Commerce Committee said it would consider the latest bill on Thursday. "This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs," TikTok said in a statement to the BBC.

Former President Donald Trump attempted to completely ban TikTok in 2020, but that was unsuccessful. More recently, a group of senators introduced legislation to block TikTok last year, but it was stalled due to lobbying from the company.
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Bipartisan Bill Could Force ByteDance To Divest TikTok More

Bipartisan Bill Could Force ByteDance To Divest TikTok

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  • Facebook is American and data still goes to China (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07, 2024 @08:03AM (#64296912)

    I mean, you can force ByteDance to divest TikTok all you want, but it will do nothing to stop the data from landing in the hands of the Chinese government. Facebook sells (or gives) massive amounts of data to China, and TikTok will do the same even if it becomes a standalone Chinese company as opposed to a subsidiary of a Chinese company.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Fake outrage. An election year.

      Let's distract the general public that we do less than nothing to justify our existence as an elected officials by blaming all of societal ills on 'the other'.

      Not that this is US specific. Any actual policy to benefit their constituents? Heck, it's all about riding the gravy train another 4 years.

      Do I sound cynical?

  • "National Security"? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mad_ian ( 28771 ) on Thursday March 07, 2024 @08:37AM (#64296978) Homepage

    That's a really weird way of spelling "American traded business interests" because if TikTok is a threat to national security, so is Facebook and The Service Formerly Known As Twitter.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jhoegl ( 638955 )
      Yet discord remains suspiciously off the list... DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNNNNN

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Discord doesn't really collect much useful info. All mine knows is a burner email and burner nickname.

  • Can we ban Facebook while we're at it... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cj9er ( 1618279 ) on Thursday March 07, 2024 @08:45AM (#64296994)
    And Instagram and Snapchat... Anything to get people back into reality and off of toxic social media It is all ruining everyone, children and adults alike

    • I know, why doesn't the US build a Great Firewall of America to prevent all these internet Companies they don't like from interfering with their Freedom(tm)? Surely that would be a great idea. They could let traffic from a website through only when it's been conclusively proven that it won't affect their Freedom(tm).

      • TikTok isn't hosted in China.

    • And Instagram and Snapchat

      Neither of those is owned by a somewhat adversarial major foreign power who who are also very selective about how foreign companies can operate.

  • Nationalization is pretty much what you expect from a communist regime, is USA a communist state?

    • Each of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto is at least half implemented.

    • Nationalization is ...

      That's a reading fail: Nowhere did the bill demand the US government buy a foreign business.

      The bill demands that ByteDance sell the personal history of 170 million US-ians to the NSA, sorry, that's US government, I mean, Facebook or X/Twitter or Microsoft.

    • Throwing out "communism" to defend a CCP controlled OSINT generating organ. When the "America BAD" and "cOmMuNiSm bad" ideologies have an inbred baby, it's truly stupid.

  • It could...but it won't (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GlennC ( 96879 ) on Thursday March 07, 2024 @08:55AM (#64297022)

    This is simply a reminder that "campaign contributions" are coming due.

    Once the wire transfer is confirmed, this bill will be silently tabled.

  • TikTok is same as Facebook. Only simpler and more modern.
    Why anyone thinks one is oki and the other one not ... no idea.

    And outselling the TikTok department out of Bytedance into its own company: what actually does that change?

    • They believe that TikTok's Heat Button is controlled by the CCP and weaponized against the American People.

      The difference is that Facebook's Heat Button is controlled by the CIA and weaponized against the American People.

      Huge difference, right?

      • Yes, huge difference.
        The CIA will happily set up a muslim/jewish/arabic/african/igure underground group in China, that is deposing the current regime, and when in power makes everything worth.

        The Chinese are not really interested in America. They are "navel belly lookers"

  • Like the American gov can force Tik Tok to do anything. They are not an American company.

    • They transact for American advertising as their means of profit.

      The whole reason BRICS+ is growing is weaponization of USD for political ends.

    • Correct. Tik Tok can say "Screw you, we're not selling." And the US government can say, "Fine. It is now illegal for you to operate in the US."

      • And the 96% of the worlds population and the 82% of the worlds economy that is NOT American will go "Meh"
        Perhaps it's time to relook at Copyright and bring the terms back to realistic while we are at it.

        This will all be even MORE true if Trumpty Dumpty gets in again.
      • I bet they don't care, considering how little of the earths population actually lives in the states. they will survive.

  • I understand and on some levels agree with the fears of Chinese data harvesting. But singling out one company won't pass muster. However our bought and paid for representatives won't push for a blanket foreign ban because such a thing would displease their corporate overlords by cutting off that sweet sweet FDI (Foreign Direct Investment).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dusanyu ( 675778 )
      First the question needs to be asked Are Non American Entities bases overseas protected under the constitution? The Question of it effecting the free speech rights of US citizens is a moot one as the people who use TikTok could Move to a different platform. As far as National security as far as data collection that can be mitigated by policy preventing people who work with sensitive data from using TikTok on any devices that use to handle that data (this includes personal devices if they use it for any wo

      • The data concerns are at least actionable from a Constitutional perspective. You mention media concerns. Which equates to government regulation and prior restraint of speech. Trying to legislate on these grounds raises all manner of 1st amendment barriers and is subject to "strict scrutiny" from the courts. Hell even during the Cold War the U.S. didn't prevent USSR ownership of domestic media outlets. Granted they had to register as foreign owned and as foreign agents. But they were still allowed to o

  • If there's one thing that out of touch morons in congress can get together on and reach across the aisle is hating teenagers and their dumb bullshit lol. Dancing in a Cosco for fake views by Chinese bots? Yeah, no.

  • Government of, by and for corporations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Miles_O'Toole ( 5152533 ) on Thursday March 07, 2024 @10:15AM (#64297220)

    "More recently, a group of senators introduced legislation to block TikTok last year, but it was stalled due to lobbying from the company."

    I can't recall who came up with it, but whoever said, "America has the best government money can buy", absolutely nailed it.

  • It takes only seconds to change the region on the app store to buy stuff from another country. How do they think pulling from the US region is going to stop anything?

  • It will be interesting to see how the bill is written, since it can not legally name either TikTok or ByteDance, as to do so would make it a Bill of Attainder, which is expressly forbidden by the Constitution.

    Not that Congress seems to care about that any more.

    • ...as to do so would make it a Bill of Attainder....

      Congress has the Constitutional right to regulate interstate and international commerce. You are misunderstanding what a Bill of Attainder is. Congress saying that TikTok is violating U.S. commercial laws is not the same as saying that TikTok has committed a criminal offense that will be punished without judicial review.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        Yes, but they are not allowed to say, "Company X may not do business in the US". They can say, "A company with parameters X, Y and Z may not do business in the US".

        They can also say, "The US Government may not buy from company X", but they can't say "Nobody in the US can buy from Company X".

  • Haven't we seen this movie before?

  • A Chinese company using first amendment rights as an argument to justify its existence. The Pooh is strong with this one.

  • 1. U.S. companies want the opportunity to purchase a competitor and own all of their sweet customer data to monetize it.

    2. Employees of the executive branch want easy access to the troves of data ByteDance collects to find evidence of crimes.

    3. U.S. legislators want bribes, sorry - donations, from U.S. companies who want the data for Reason 1.

    Please note that the omission of national security from this list is not a mistake because it's a rationalization and not a true motivation.

  • Already China blocked IP transfer in case of sale 4years ago, so a buyer isn't really buying anything.
    Young people will stay defiant and keep using tiktok in other ways, e.g. sideloading (and using cheap chinese Android phones instead of overly expensive iPhone). The rest of the world generates enormous content, it's the same as if you cut off Turkey from Facebook, people will not appreciate it and accuse government from being totalitarian.
    Does Biden want this in election year? Absolutely not.

  • "applications like TikTok that are controlled by foreign adversaries pose an unacceptable risk to US national security."

    It seems they inadvertently misspelled advertising companies as "national security."

  • Lucky American kids now dance on creepy American internet videos, not the cheap Chinese stuff.

  • They want to shut down Chinese data collection in order to force China to buy data on US citizens directly from Meta (or X, etc...).
    (I'm only half kidding).

    Still no concern on the part of congress about federal investigative agencies (as well as local law enforcement) that get information on US citizens by buying it from social media companies. This lets them get reams of data on people without bothering to get a search warrant.

  • I find it completely infuriating, but at the same time interesting, that a non-US entity can lobby the US government.

    Remind our elected officials they are 'representatives' and that they are not representing. Vote the incumbents out!

  • When we wanted Net Neutrality, the GOP stood up and said "BUT MAH FIRST AMENDMENT!" saying the ISP had the right, under the first amendment, to operate how they wished. That blocking, limiting, or censoring traffic was their ultimate right.

    Oh...but now they want to take some of those same companies that they disagree with and FORCE them, by law, to abide by the first.

    Do they still want ISP's to censor content? Yes. Do they still want companies to fire people for expressing themselves? Only if they're not co

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