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U.S. lawmakers unveil bipartisan bid to ban China's TikTok

14 points| jonaslund | 3 years ago |reuters.com

1 comment

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jjcm|3 years ago

Some interesting aspects reading the bill[0] is that it defines social networks are susceptible to this bill if they're at least 10% owned (or at least have 10% voting power) by...

1. A country of concern: Any country defined as foreign adversaries (currently named are China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela)

2. A company of concern: These are explicitly defined as Bytedance, TikTok, or any subsidiary of them.

I find it interesting that this bill explicitly calls out Bytedance and Tiktok, rather than making a broader bill that's purely targeted at foreign interference. To add to this, Senator Rubio's statements [1] make things very clear that this bill is almost entirely related to TikTok. Has there ever been legislation that bans an explicitly named piece of software or social network?

[0] https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/1ebac814-15...

[1] https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2022/12/rubio-...