The US Senate has approved a controversial landmark bill that could see TikTok banned in America.
It gives TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, six months to sell its stake or the app will be blocked in the United States.
The bill will now be handed over to US President, Joe Biden, who has vowed to sign it into law as soon as it reaches his desk.
If that happens, ByteDance will have to seek approval from Chinese officials to complete a forced sale, which Beijing has vowed to oppose.
The measure was passed as part of a package of four bills which also included military aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other US partners in the Indo- Pacific.
It got widespread support from lawmakers with 79 Senators voting for it and 18 voting against it.
It gives TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, six months to sell its stake or the app will be blocked in the United States.
so two weeks before Election Day?
Political instincts so awful it's amazing the democrats have survived this long.
Probably for that exact reason.
It's incredible this party has survived so long off of being diet conservatism
All of the stupidity, but with an air of haughty superiority and less obvious racism/sexism/homophobia/etc
If you listen hard, you can hear VPN providers' eyes turn into dollar signs.
Any app that the US government can’t control will be treated this way. That means any app developed outside of the US or its vassals that gets popular enough among Americans. It’s how the US implements its own soft “Great Firewall”.
Shut that shit down in the US, get US teens to use VPNs set to not-the-USA so they can keep using TikTok, and thus get a whole generation into widespread VPN use.
you say that like the US can't just get backdoor access to US VPN providers and criminalize non-compliant VPN use.
The bill will now be handed over to US President, Joe Biden, who has said he will sign it into law as soon as it reaches his desk.
If that happens, ByteDance will have to seek approval from Chinese officials to complete a forced sale, which Beijing has vowed to oppose. Analysts say the process could take years.
If any of this is true, this rocks. We're going to see the US government censor an entire app used by millions of Americans
Right as university campuses around the country are filling with mass demonstrations facing extreme state repression. During what will probably be the hottest year in human history. As all the utility companies face severe supply crunches and the economy is melting down. During 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝑜𝓈𝓉 𝒾𝓂𝓅𝑜𝓇𝓉𝒶𝓃𝓉 𝑒𝓁𝑒𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝑜𝒻 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒𝓈.
I could see it prompting a Certified 1968 Moment if/when things get worse this year. I don't know how it would compare to the BLM protests of 2020 but this decision was bad.
It will be late October before when this takes effect, unless he ponders it some. He has what, 10 days? So he's going to piss off all the young people 2-12 days before the election.
How the fuck did Tiktok become the focus of the third (fourth? Who even knows) red scare?
Alternative media is normally recuperated into another generic ideological state apparatus. They control every other platform that's popular with the youngsters. Tiktok is the only one where the algorithm doesn't immediately punish you for being a leftist and the mods/admins can't shape what that word means in direct line with the US government. Now our lying eyes can't deceive us.
A social media site that isn't ENOUGH of a 4chan clone? That's a threat to national security!
zionists dont have full control of TikTok like they do Meta and Twitter apps, and that just won't stand.
"Israel" doesn't control Meta or Twitter. The US has absolute control over Meta, Twitter, and "Israel".
Literally "China is making me take your treats away" policy
Its not just tiktok, far from it but the future is terrifying. I genuinely hate living here
Genocide Joe needs to keep those kids from seeing how much he loves murdering children. At least nothing bad could happen when it's purchased by far-right Trump cabinet members.
I’m assuming a ban would be implemented by removing TikTok from US app stores. If so, there is a workaround on both iOS and Android: create an alternate iCloud or Google account based in a non-US country and download/update TikTok through that account. Once downloaded, your phone will display and let you use apps from multiple regions.
On the Play Store, it’s as easy as switching accounts in the Play Store app (tap your profile in the upper-right). On iOS, it’s more annoying, as you need to fully sign out of iCloud on your phone, which resets things like Apple Pay, but it can be done every few months to pull updates.
Given the fact that side loading apps is easy on android and functionally not possible on iOS in the US, this style of ban may actually drive young people away from iOS when they see their Android-using peers still using TikTok unimpeded.
Android users might be able to just use FDroid and download that way as well
And that’s only if you don’t already have it downloaded. I wonder if a VPN will be needed in order to use the app, but it’s not like ByteDance will just block US IPs, why would they, so you’d have to block it at the ISP level.
I have a suspicion that if this passes, the US govt will pressure the EU to remove it from their store.
Maybe? I doubt it, at least not yet... EU is decidedly more reserved in being anti-China and still postures itself less aggressively than the US. There's a reason that the EU is full of Chinese cars and the US is not, for example.
However, EU already decided long ago and especially in the past few years, e.g. in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, to join the US in maintaining the old US-dominant world order, rather than work with the BRICS+ countries to build a new one. So at some point, if EU is serious about being pro-US, they will have to actually oppose China, not just pay lip service.
I'm sure the US will try, but the EU has been forcing US tech monopolies to allow third party app stores in the European market over the past few years. The EU would have to pull a pretty significant legal 180 to give US monopolies the power to enforce the kind of bans the US is implementing. That's not to say it won't happen; it's just not quite as easy to accomplish as it is in the US.
May we all perish in the wrathful fires of the Zoomers.
Can't ByteDance just do what other companies do, declare that it's technically based in the Canary Islands and is therefore not Chinese?
It has nothing to do with China, really. That's just the excuse. The real reason for the ban is that Tiktok is becoming a hub for pro-Palestinian anti-genocide content. No amount of legal-location tricks will stop the US government from trying to kill Tiktok so long as it refuses to implement pro-Israel censorship.
It has everything to do with China. It's a company whose success threatens the profits of US monopolies in the same way as every other Chinese industry targeted by this administration. China's economic success undermines US global hegemony. TikTok's alleged "pro-Palestine" stance is entirely reflective of its younger user base. None of the people running ByteDance give a fuck about Palestine. They care about generating profit for shareholders, and they made a more addictive Skinner box than the US Skinner boxes companies. The US wants that profit going to US billionaires and not to the Chinese public. Chinese chip makers and EV manufacturers aren't being targeted because their customers are becoming too woke.
It's wishful thinking to believe that a critical mass of US teenagers are on the verge of posting their way to Palestinian liberation, because US public opinion, young people especially, doesn't control US policy. The US isn't a democracy. Facebook could be wall to wall river to the sea free Palestine posts tomorrow, and the US government's commitment to exterminate the people of Palestine would remain unchanged. Joe Biden isn't making this decision because he thinks it will result in a higher net popularity. He's doing it because he knows he doesn't have to worry about popularity. He doesn't really even have to worry about winning reelection. Anyone who would be permitted to replace him would still implement the same core policies.
That's nonsense. Where's the ultra-urgent legislative push to force Tencent to sell its western assets? It's a Chinese company that owns 100% of US-based Riot Games, the League of Legends people. They also own 40% of US-based Epic Games, the Fortnite people. Both are money printing machines, sending western cash to China. But I don't see American politicians handwringing about those two situations.
What's the real difference? Influential zionists are freaking the hell out about Tiktok.
You don't see legislative pushes for that yet. I know this might be difficult for some people on this website to accept, but the video game sector probably isn't anyone's first priority in terms of geopolitical hegemony. PC gaming is popular and lucrative, but the user base isn't exactly on the same scale as phones, PCs generally, or social media. TikTok is a threat to Meta and Google monopolies in a way that League of Legends isn't to any of the big five. That's not to say that Microsoft might not eventually push for it, but Microsoft has never had the kind of monopoly over the video game space that they have over desktop OS. Huawei is a similar threat to Apple and Google's mobile monopoly, which is why they're targeted.
The idea that the poor powerless US is being led around on a leash by a secret cabal of "zionists" is superficial and backwards. Zionism functionally only exists as an extension of the US imperial project. If the Zionist occupation stopped serving US strategic interests, it would collapse overnight. It isn't capable of independently sustaining itself. It's obvious that anyone committed to US imperialism would be similarly committed to protecting its investment in the occupation of Palestine as a forward operating base for US military objectives. The US government is not being "infiltrated" or "tricked" by a "foreign power", as universally flattering as that explanation is to American vanity. It's a popular cope because it gives US citizens a superficial explanation for why they have no influence over public policy, while allowing them to maintain the delusion that their country is actually good if not for the dangerous foreigners secretly corrupting the righteous American spirit.
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Their current setup should already do exactly that. Tiktok is based in Singapore, not China.
