TikTok Ban Bill Only Tangentially About TikTok

As usual, "bipartisan" means "bad"

With the 2024 election nearing and political contention in DC remaining extremely high, a surprisingly speedy bipartisan bill to force the sale of TikTok made its way through the House of Representatives yesterday:

At first glance, these results seem a little surprising, but when you dig into the subject, a clearer picture emerges:

Published on November 1, 2023.

So on the Democratic side, you have people voting “NO” because they’re generally on the side of the Palestinians. (AOC, Ilhan Omar, etc.) On the Republican side, opposition is centered around the “Freedom Caucus”, which (understandably) doesn’t trust the language of the bill.

Paul’s concerns are well-founded.

Before we review the full text of the bill, here’s Dan “Eyepatch McCain” Crenshaw attempting to perform damage control and combatting the ‘lies’ spewed by Rand Paul and the rest of the Freedom Caucus:

Of course, when you look at the actual text of the bill, it becomes clear that Crenshaw is full of it. The bill never mentions TikTok once, and instead uses INCREDIBLY broad language to cast a wide net over basically all internet traffic in the country. As an example, here’s the section for determining who is a “foreign adversary” that would trigger the forced sale of a website or company:

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If the USA were making a list of enemies, that’s probably who’d you expect to see on it. China, RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA, Iran, Cuba, etc. As long as you aren’t controlled by one of those countries, you have nothing to worry about, claim the bill’s proponents.

Yet just a few pages later:

Click to enlarge

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Edit: My bad, these snippets of text are from the Senate’s RESTRICT Act, which was the failed predecessor to the current bill, which DOES mention TikTok by name. Additionally, instead of the Secretary determining a ‘foreign adversary’, the president does it directly:

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This opens the door to allow the US government to designate ANYBODY, AT ANY TIME as under the control (direct or indirect!) of a foreign adversary. It’s the USA PATRIOT Act all over again. (Remember when they promised that wouldn’t be used against Americans, either?)

Is it that much of a stretch to think the US government would use the “Ban TikTok” bill to instead ban Twitter, or even worse — Substack? They’ve been calling anybody who’s against the war in Ukraine a “Putin stooge” — is that all it would take to get a website taken down? (I could make a very good case the text of the bill allows them to do just that.)

Thomas Massie explains the argument very well. Pay close attention to the “Amazon exception” — why on Earth do they need that if the bill just bans TikTok?

Justin Amash weighs in:

As does Vivek Ramaswamy:

Actually reading the bill and knowing my history, I believe the Freedom Caucus members are right on the money here. If the bill is supposed to be a narrow ban on one particular app, then make it say that. Leaving the wording purposely vague and leaving classification decisions in the hands of political players almost certainly ensures the bill will be used for political reasons. (USA PATRIOT Act - digital version.)

Or maybe you trust Nancy Pelosi and her extremely powerful logic instead:

We’re not trying to BAN TikTok, we just want to force it out of the hands of our ‘enemies’ so that we have total control over what Americans are allowed to listen to! And if they don’t want to sell, it’s STILL not a ban because they had a choice! (Like get jabbed or get fired.)

But who would be interested in buying TikTok in the first place?

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

Here’s an idea — instead of banning Chinese-controlled apps, why don’t we ban Chinese-controlled politicians instead?

(What DC would look like after that:)

What do you guys think about this bill? Is TikTok dangerous enough that it should be banned? Is this even about ‘safety’ in the first place? If not — what’s it about? Looking forward to some great conversations about this today!

Edit to add Donald Trump’s two cents. This is NOT the way:

Buy me some birthday pie on Ko-fi — no subscription required!

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This post wouldn’t be complete without some math wordplay…..