Joe Biden on Wednesday, April 24 signed the so-called “TikTok Ban,” a statute that will “allow” the federal government to prohibit the Chinese parent company, ByteDance, from offering for sale, download, or use, the popular social media, video-info-sharing platform.
Of course, the prohibition will be instituted after the 2024 election, and Biden’s campaign is going to keep using TikTok right to the exciting, absolutely unquestionable, November vote.
No hypocrisy exhibited. Move along.
As one of their reasonings for pushing to ban TikTok in the United States, U.S. legislators say they're concerned that TikTok will give data over to the Chinese government if asked.
Gosh, it sure is good that the U.S. government doesn’t engage that kind of activity with, say, banking institutions it “regulates” to go after gun buyers and other innocent people. It’s a good thing the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the FBI didn’t get info from Bank of America, Chase, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, and Citi Bank on people who bought Bibles.
That would be bad, especially since those banks are under the thumb of the SEC, FTC, and FDIC, to name a few of the pertinent unconstitutional juggernaut jerk-cabals.
And though these legislators are concerned that the company is already controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, the standard for DC tax-thieving thugs is apparently completely different.
Related: Biden Admin Propels Red Flag Gun Laws: Constitutional Implications Revealed
Pay no attention to the tax-cash showered on National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting “Service,” and their mama, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is, after all, the land of the “free,” so government-created corporations that propagandize us every day simply must not exist, right? Sure - no breaches of their vaunted Constitution occur on a similar, daily, basis, thanks to the people telling us they want to protect America from TikTok.
Well, ByteDance has responded.
Kane Wu and Julie Zhu report for Reuters:
“TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer to shut down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., four sources said.”
And Wu and Zhu add:
“The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance's overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely, said the sources close to the parent.”
The Reuters team also notes that TikTok comprises a small portion of ByteDance revenue, so the company heads are willing to sacrifice it and leave the U.S. market if they cannot beat the U.S. government in court.
Strictly speaking, the sparkling new congressionally-passed “ban” on TikTok would not immediately shut down the app or stop its sale.
“It doesn’t say TikTok or other foreign adversary-controlled applications cannot operate – but it functions that way. ByteDance or any other owner or distributor of an app meeting this definition will have up to one year to sell their app or face a one-time penalty of $5,000 per user. TikTok has more than 150 million users in the United States, so it would have to pay $750 billion to continue operating. But even if it wanted to operate, the same penalty applies to anyone who distributes TikTok, and no app store would make it available to users when faced with that penalty.”
So you can understand why Biden is waiting until after the election to enact this measure, 'all things considered.'
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Biden blunders again by saying we’re “exporting American jobs.”
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