The biggest threat to TikTok is the restriction law

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There May Be a New Way to Deal with TikTok in D.C.: A Bipartisan Bill From Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and John Thune (R-SD) That’s Not TikTok ban – although it could lead to one. It also deals not only with TikTok or its parent company, China-based ByteDance, but all tech companies from countries identified as countries of concern.

“Everyone today is talking about TikTok,” Warner said at a news conference announcing the bill. But before there was TikTok there was Huawei and ZTEAnd before that there was Russia Kaspersky Lab. ”

The Restricting Emergence of Information and Communications Technology Security Threats (RESTRICT) Act, which Warner & Tone unveiled on March 7, gives the Secretary of Commerce the power to take action against technology companies that are based in certain countries identified as “foreign adversaries,” including This includes China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba. This would include banning their information and communications products and services, but the government would be allowed to declassify documents proving that such an extreme step was actually necessary — something missing so far in most arguments in favor of banning TikTok, which are rooted in what could happen and not what actually happened.

Kindly note that the invoice Not a complete ban which many TikTok critics have advocated and other lawmakers support — at least, not yet. But it may be the most feasible legislative solution to TikTok’s problem. It also deals more comprehensively with the potential for apps from hostile countries to be used against American interests, rather than excluding just one or two of them from one country as other TikTok ban efforts have done. The bill would give the Secretary of Commerce the authority to identify, investigate and determine what actions to take against products and services that he determines pose a threat to national security. The president will then determine whether these measures are necessary and order their implementation.

“Our tools thus far have been relatively limited,” Warner said. “We lack a comprehensive, interagency, whole-of-government approach.” He said this bill would do just that. And it will give the government the ability to deal with potential technological threats in the future, such as artificial intelligence.

The concern with TikTok is that Chinese law allows the government to order ByteDance to give away TikTok user data in the US or to spread propaganda or misleading information to US users. ByteDance and TikTok have denied ever doing this, and there is no public evidence of this. But for TikTok opponents, the potential is enough. They have also cited past controversies Content censorship This is prohibited in China and ByteDance employees Access to location data of a few US TikTok users in order to investigate employees suspected of leaking information to journalists (ByteDance said this surveillance was not authorized by the company and the employees responsible for it were fired).

since August 2020When former President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company or be banned, TikTok was banned. under review by Interagency group It is called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Both parties were trying to reach an agreement that would alleviate national security concerns and allow the company to continue operating in the country. According to TikTok, the company had a draft agreement with CFIUS signed about six months ago, and TikTok has been implementing several Trust and security Sizes on the basis of its provisions. This includes a partnership with Oracle to house US TikTok user data on Oracle servers in the US; a plan to give Oracle and other third parties some oversight over TikTok’s data, algorithm, and employees; and severe restrictions on who can access US user data.

“The Biden administration does not need additional authority from Congress to address national security concerns about TikTok: It can approve the deal negotiated with CFIUS over two years that it has spent the past six months reviewing,” TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said in a statement. “The US ban on TikTok is a ban on exporting American culture and values ​​to the more than 1 billion people who use our services around the world.”

Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, Vox said in January that “Congress may soon be forced to step in” if the CFIUS review continues to lag, though he also said he didn’t want to go beyond a targeted ban. Between no deal and Tensions escalate With China – including China’s friendly relationship with Russia, its use of blimps to spy on the US, its TikTok ban on federal and many state government-owned devices, and grow number to Invoices Calls for TikTok to be banned outright – Warner seems to have lost patience.

Joining Warner & Toon in sponsoring the bill are Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Deb Fisher (R-NE), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Michael Bennett (D-CO) and Dan Sullivan (R-Oklahoma), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Martin Heinrichs (D-NM) and Mitt Romney (R-UT). They emphasized bipartisan support for the bill and the need to do more than ban just one app from one company when there are so many technological threats, including software and hardware, from so many companies and countries.

Several senators have signed the bill since it was introduced, including Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Kevin Kramer (R-ND), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Chuck Grassley (R- IA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) and Thom Tillis (R-NC).

The Biden administration appears to have lost patience. It looks like the CFIUS deal will never end, as it is now with the Biden administration It said Claim ByteDance to sell TikTok. But ByteDance would need the approval of the Chinese government to do so, and China said You won’t give it.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan signaled the White House’s support for the Restriction Act shortly after it was introduced, saying in a statement that the bill “will help us address the threats we face today, and prevent such risks from arising in the future.”

Sullivan added, “We look forward to continuing to work with both Democrats and Republicans on this bill, and urge Congress to move quickly to send it to the desk of the president.”

Despite all this, it is still very unlikely that TikTok will ever actually be banned in the US. Such a move would be unprecedented here, and its legitimacy has not yet been tested apart from the efforts of Trump, who was shot down when the Biden administration took office and overturned his order. Banning TikTok was largely a Republican affair (Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who He said He’s against bans because it would harm free speech, is the exception), with only a few Democrats on record to support them and many of them saying they oppose them. Rep. Jamal Bowman (D-NY) held up March against the ban.

But this may also change. TikTok CEO Shou Chew suffer An hours-long grilling of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23 was a bipartisan effort, something many lawmakers noted throughout the proceedings.

Outside the work of Congress, the Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and age. Bennett Both Apple and Google have requested that the app be removed from their respective app stores. These are requests, not orders, and there is no indication that companies will agree to them. But it would take responsibility for lawmakers to do anything.

In the end, the biggest obstacle to a ban may not be politics but what it will actually do. It could mean taking a beloved platform away from the estimated more than 150 million Americans who use it as well as the many businesses that turn to the platform to advertise their goods and services. This wouldn’t go over well with them, to say the least. And contrary to popular belief that it’s just an app for kids, many TikTok users are of voting age. While TikTok has been banned in a few other countries (India, in particular; it’s also unavailable in China, which has its own version, called Douyin), it could also have profound impact on the rest of the internet If it is banned in the United States. This is an extreme and potentially unpopular move that has not been implemented anywhere. But it seems a little closer than it was a few years or even months ago.

Several Republicans have said they wouldn’t accept anything less than outright bans at this point, so the restriction law, despite their partisanship, still faces an uphill battle. But it may be the happy medium enough lawmakers are looking for to do at least something about TikTok without having to go so far as banning it — while still leaving that as an option. And that might be good enough.

“I think we’re going to pass this,” said Bennett, the Colorado state senator.

Update, March 29, 11:30 a.m. ET: This story, originally published March 7, has been updated to include new statements from lawmakers and officials, news of Qiu’s hearing, and positions of the US and Chinese governments on the potential sale.

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