[teqsun]

In a strange way, if it was a blanket China ban, it would almost feel less arbitrary than this, which was crafted to target ByteDance.

The fact they packaged it inside a funding bill that would have been politically unpopular for Congress to oppose also makes me speculate that they felt it wasn't strong enough to stand up to scrutiny on its own merits

[matthewdgreen]

The law technically doesn't limit itself to TikTok. It seems to cover any application or foreign company that meets certain criteria, which include (1) the President identifying it and writing some reports, and (2) some restrictions on the nature of the app, which would cover other social media. It is obviously written to cover TikTok initially (the name even appears in the bill) but the powers it grants are broader. Not sure if this is better or worse.