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On Wednesday, the Home handed a invoice that might end result within the banning of social media app TikTok.
Regardless of Donald Trump declaring earlier this week that TikTok shouldn’t be banned, 197 Republicans—together with Speaker Mike Johnson, normally so desirous to do Trump’s bidding—joined in a lopsided 352-65 vote to just do that. The invoice nonetheless must be accredited by the Senate, the place it might not have the required help. Some Democrats, similar to Virginia’s Mark Warner, who chairs the Choose Committee on Intelligence, support it. Nonetheless, Majority Chief Chuck Schumer has not but scheduled the difficulty for debate.
If handed, the invoice would give Chinese language firm ByteDance six months to divest itself of the TikTok app. Failing that, TikTop can be banned in the USA. With 170 million Individuals reportedly utilizing the app, the potential for political pushback appears excessive.
However the greatest story concerning the vote could also be Trump’s last-minute flip in favor of TikTok, and simply how few Republicans had been prepared to comply with his lead.
In 2020, Trump signed an govt order that quickly blocked customers from downloading TikTok, describing it as a nationwide menace. Trump spoke out towards the app on a number of events, associating the app and ByteDance with the Chinese language Neighborhood Get together.
President Joe Biden lifted Trump’s govt order in 2021 whereas directing the intelligence group to review any potential threats. Final month, the Biden marketing campaign joined TikTok.
As Each day Kos reported on Tuesday, Trump reversed course to announce his help of TikTok after assembly with Republican megadonor Jeff Yass. Yass holds a 15% stake in TikTok’s mother or father firm via his personal agency, Susquehanna Worldwide Group.
Going through over half a billion in debt following a pair of monumental authorized defeats, and indicators that his means to grift off small greenback donations could also be operating out, Trump has been looking for a actual billionaire to bail him out of his issues.
Regardless of his ninth-inning change of coronary heart on TikTok, solely 15 Republicans voted to guard TikTok from a doable ban. That features Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, who hurried to say that she hadn’t checked in with Trump on this situation.
“So it doesn’t imply that we’re all robots,” mentioned Greene. “We make our personal choices, and mine was to vote no on this invoice.” That her vote mirrored what Trump wished was, as at all times, only a coincidence.
Amongst these voting no was Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who, fittingly sufficient, issued an official assertion regarding her vote on TikTok.
“I’m voting no on the TikTok compelled sale invoice,” she wrote. “This invoice was extremely rushed, from committee to vote in 4 days, with little rationalization. There are critical antitrust and privateness questions right here, and any nationwide safety issues ought to be laid out to the general public previous to a vote.”
Wisconsin Democrat Mark Pocan additionally voted no, saying that an intelligence briefing on Tuesday precipitated him to line up towards the invoice. Pocan additionally famous that pretending to repair the difficulty by simply addressing TikTok missed the actual drawback.
“We have to deal with information privateness throughout all social networks, together with American firms like Meta and X,” he wrote on social media, “via significant regulation that protects freedom of expression. Not simply single out one platform.”
Based on CNN, Republican Rep. John Duarte talked about the identical intelligence briefing on the safety dangers related to TikTok when explaining why he voted no.
“I went to the briefing yesterday, the highest secret briefing, it was vacuous,” mentioned Duarte. “There was no particular data given in that briefing that was properly based proof and particular about what TikTok or anyone else was doing.”
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