WIRED’s Reaction against a Ban on TikTok and a Motion to Against Its Proposal for a U.S. Reppropriation
TikTok rushed to fight the bill because it was caught off guard by its introduction last week. Users of the app had a chance to enter their zip codes and receive a number for congress to call if they wanted to urge against a TikTok ban.
You can read Makena on the bill that would ban TikTok. We also have instructions to get your videos off TikTok. Read all of WIRED’s TikTok coverage.
Makena said to go to the office. (Really.) Mike recommends Ener-C powdered vitamin drink mix. Kate Knibbs has previously recommended AmericanFiction, the film that just won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay.
Makena Kelly and the Gadget Lab Hotline: How to Join the LambdaGadgetLab Committee on Data Privacy
Makena Kelly can be found on social media @kellymakena. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is done by an individual named Boone Ashworth. Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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Still, some members expressed concern about the speed with which the bill made its way to passage. Rep. Ro Khanna voted against it and called it a process that was rushed in a statement. “Congress needs to listen and work instead on a broader data privacy bill to address real concerns without a ban,” he said.
The committee did not leak the content of the negotiations to the media due to how serious their members were, according to the committee chairman. “We had multiple iterations. Technical assistance from the White House improved the bill.
Now that the legislation’s fate is in the hands of the Senate, the process could slow down considerably. There’s not yet a companion bill in that chamber, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has not yet committed to a course of action besides reviewing the bill.
How the House quietly revived the TikTok ban bill: A counterexample to the frustration of Congress and the public, and it may not violate the Constitution
The senior staffer for the House Intelligence Committee stated that their office had gotten calls from students crying when learning of the decision to remove TikTok from them.
“One person threatened self harm unless they got their TikTok. Krishnamoorthi said that another impersonated a member of Congress’s son to scare them. “And this is exactly the kind of influence campaign which, in the hands of a foreign adversary in a moment of national peril, could sow chaos and discord and division in a way that could really harm our national security to the benefit of a foreign adversary.”
The statute comes with legal hurdles and that is the reason for the vote not being the right bill. HR 7521 takes a different approach, making it illegal for app stores or web hosts to distribute social media services that are “controlled by a foreign adversary.” Six months is the time in which companies must remove foreign ownership or stake to remain in the US.
The authors worked with stakeholders and the White House and Department of Justice for months to address concerns — including concerns about whether the legislation could violate the constitution. Even after all the work, Krishnamoorthi told reporters that the 352 votes the bill received “was not predicted.”
It took 12 pages for the bill to be voted on. “I mean, it wasn’t like an omnibus that we just shoved in people’s faces. A member of congress could read 12 pages in a day.
The Case of Congress against Hitting Down on the CCP and Other Power-Law Committees: The Case Against TikTok
The office of the Energy and Commerce Committee member has not seen any lobbying engagement from TikTok since their CEO testified last year. They were taken by surprise by the number of calls.
For four hours, the office’s four phone lines were constantly full, with others going to voicemail. When others had to get to the bathroom, staffers would have to take turns handling the phones.
The congressional call-in campaign was unusual because of the conversations with five congressional staffers, who were not authorized to speak on the record about internal matters. For one, they didn’t seem to have any sort of script. They would hang up after realizing they had gotten through to a live person. And even stranger, most sounded extremely young. Several staffers who spoke to The Verge estimated that callers sounded like they were 14, 15 years old, and sometimes even younger. TikTok has said the notification went to users over 18.
After this staffer asked a caller to give their name to record their message, the young caller asked if they could leave their comment without giving out their information. The senior staffer said that protecting the callers private information was a point of the legislation they were talking about.
According to the E&C member, 200 calls were received last Thursday but only eight to ten had left any information. “When the others heard someone answer the phone, they hung up.”
“This was a preview of what could happen if the CCP wanted to use the app to prevent Congress from acting, say, on a debate over authorizing force to defend Taiwan. Or removing China’s permanent normal trade relations status,” Gallagher told reporters after the vote. It is too easy for an enemy to have control over what is becoming a dominant news platform in America.
“It was probably the number one worst public relations stunt that TikTok pulled,” Krishnamoorthi told The Verge. “That was kind of the secret, not-so-secret reason why, for instance, the House Energy and Commerce Committee had a number of lean-yeses on the day of the vote that became hell-yeses by the time of the vote.”
In a letter to Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi on Monday, TikTok’s vice president of public policy Michael Beckerman wrote, “It is offensive that you would complain about hearing from your constituents and seek to deny them of their constitutional rights. One would hope, as public servants, that you would be well acquainted with the constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances.”
Source: How the House quietly revived the TikTok ban bill
How the House quietly revived the Tik Tok ban bill: A perspective from a member of the Congressional staffers’ call on the Congress
If a national security threat presents itself to the US, I have to pay attention to that as a member of the Congress.
Eshand called the one prior to the committee markup excellent after she spent about a decade on the House Intelligence Committee. Hearing from intelligence officials made her less concerned about the process. She said she would have objected, if it was brought up without an update. “But it was, I thought, a very thorough briefing, layered over other briefings that we have had.”
The classified briefings were not necessarily one single revelation that made a difference, said Krishnamoorthi. “I think that it’s probably the level of seriousness with which people addressed the topic. And the way it was done, which was not partisan in any way.” He added that the opportunity for lawmakers to have “candid conversations” with each other in a bipartisan, classified setting was also helpful.
Source: How the House quietly revived the TikTok ban bill
Rep. Jim Himes, a Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee, and the Senate Commerce Committee on the American Data Privacy and Protection Act
There are significant differences between us and our adversaries, one being the fact they shut down newspapers, broadcast stations, and social media platforms. We don’t.
The members who were opposed to the legislation either saw it as a rushed process or the wrong tool to fit their concerns. Notably, Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was one of the members who opposed the bill. He said in a statement that, due to his position on the committee, “I have more insight than most into the online threats posed by our adversaries. But one of the key differences between us and those adversaries is the fact that they shut down newspapers, broadcast stations, and social media platforms. We do not. We trust our citizens to be worthy of their democracy. We do not trust our government to decide what information they may or may not see.”
E&C Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) also expressed concern about the speed of the process ahead of the committee’s classified hearing and vote last week. Before he made his decision, he wanted to hear from the witnesses. After emerging from the classified hearing, he joined the rest of his colleagues on the panel in voting for the legislation to pass. After casting his vote in favor of it there, he later advocated for it on the floor.
The legislation needs to be put through the Commerce Committee by its chair, Maria Cantwell. But Cantwell has served as a roadblock to popular bipartisan tech legislation in the past. She was the only one of the “four corners” of the relevant committees (the top Republicans and Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Commerce Committee) to withhold support for the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, the most concrete and comprehensive piece of privacy legislation to reach such an advanced stage. It passed out of the House committee with a majority vote.
In a statement after the House vote on the TikTok bill, Cantwell said she’d try to find “a path forward that is constitutional and protects civil liberties,” but did not necessarily commit to advancing that exact legislation.
“I’m very concerned about foreign adversaries’ exploitation of Americans’ sensitive data and their attempts to build backdoors in our information communication technology and services supply chains,” Cantwell said. These are national security threats and that is good. The members of the chambers are taking them seriously.
Source: How the House quietly revived the TikTok ban bill
Comment on “Hopfenstein & the Deal of the Century” by A.D. Gallagher after the House Select Committee on ‘Titk Tok’
Speaking with reporters after the vote, Gallagher tried to downplay Trump’s opposition. The bill’s goal is not to shut down TikTok and make its users go to Facebook, according to what Trump said. That would be a bad outcome,” he said. “So in that sense, I agree with what Trump said. Our bill allows for the sale of things.
if he is reelected, Trump may be able to negotiate a deal of the century, because he has an ego and self-crafted image of being a dealmaker.