U.S. House OVERWHELMINGLY Votes To Ban TikTok #TYT

This is not an attempt to ban TikTok. It's an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic tac toe a winner, a winner. Got it all right. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn't the only member of Congress who thinks a possible TikTok ban in the United States would actually make the social media platform better. Now, the House overwhelmingly passed legislation today that could eventually lead to app stores banning TikTok, with 352 lawmakers voting in favor and only 65 voting against the bill. And while eve

ryone loses their minds over this for various reasons, understand that the legislation will likely fail in the Senate. More on that later. But first, we should get into the details on what the House just passed and later get into the moneyed interest behind this agenda. Here's what lawmakers have been allegedly concerned about even before - President Joe Biden came into office. - Here's the crux of the debate. TikTok's US headquarters is in California, but it is controlled by a larger company, B

yteDance, headquartered in Beijing. ByteDance also owns a separate but parallel Chinese version of TikTok called Douyin. The Communist Party has a small stake in that, and a big voice, with a Communist Party official sitting on the board. A ByteDance whistleblower has charged that the Communist Party uses Douyin for spying on protesters and others. The concern is that there's a path for the Communist Party to access US data, TikTok claims know that it has walled off US data. So in response to th

ose concerns, the House finally succeeded in passing a bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company if they fail to do so. That's when a ban would theoretically kick in. Now, according to the Washington Post, the House measure explicitly targets TikTok and its parent company while giving the federal government a new mechanism to ban apps with ties to nations viewed as foreign adversaries. If ByteDance declined to spin off TikTok within six months, the bill would requir

e App Store providers to stop carrying the platform, which could effectively shutter its U.S. Operations. By the way, does anyone else find it kind of hilarious that we're hyper focused on banning this social media site or app when a lot of our businesses are still exploiting labor in China, like we're treating China as an adversary while still exploiting their labor. Just something to keep in mind. But anyway, there was a ton of trial and error on the path to where we are today. But a bipartisa

n group of politicians were apparently reinvigorated by President Biden. Never thought I'd say that, declaring that he would sign a TikTok ban into law if a bill ever made its way to his desk. So Representatives Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, who's a Democrat from Illinois, they're the leaders of the Select Committee on China. They previously introduced another bill targeting TikTok, which was stymied amid constitutional concerns. The Commerce panel greenli

t the bill, led by them 50 to 0, just last week, advancing it just two days after its introduction, an unheard of pace for legislation targeting tech companies. Yeah, it's I mean, an unheard of pace for legislation targeting any company, really, especially in the modern American era where legalized bribery is just baked into our system. And by the way, prior to today's vote, TikTok engaged in a serious pressure campaign that clearly failed to persuade lawmakers to back off. TikTok mounted an agg

ressive push to thwart the House's consideration of the measure over the past week, directly urging U.S. Users to contact their representatives and oppose it in a pop up message. The tactic inundated congressional offices with calls at times forcing offices to shut off their phones. But it also riled up House leaders, who accused the company of wielding its vast power in a bid to upend the congressional debate over its future. In addition, a spokesperson for China argued that the ban is really a

bout American companies rigging the market to their advantage because the chumps just can't compete. Even though the U.S. Has not found evidence on how TikTok endangers its national security, it has never stopped going after TikTok. Such practice of resorting to acts of bullying when one could not succeed in fair competition, disrupts the normal operation of the market. It undermines the confidence of international investors and sabotages the global economic and trade order. This will eventually

backfire on the US itself. A lot of mainstream media don't give you honest news. We do. You know why? Because of you. Paid membership on YouTube makes all the difference. Hit the join button below and you become the hero that sustains us. Look, the reality is that both things could be true. ByteDance is in fact based in Beijing, and it is not far fetched for the Chinese government to demand access to the data of American TikTok users. I also have a problem with US based companies collecting our

data and selling it to third parties, which includes advertisers and data brokers. This is part of the reason why everyone's personal information, including phone numbers and addresses, is, you know, relatively easy to find. It's also true that moneyed interests and TikTok's competitors, like meta were lobbying hard for the ban. So back in March of 2022, The Washington Post published an exclusive piece titled Facebook Paid GOP firm to Malign TikTok. The firm targeted victory pushed local operat

ives across the country to boost messages, calling TikTok a threat to American children. So fascinating piece. You should totally read it. And in the piece, why don't we read a few excerpts for you? In the piece, readers learn that meta paid targeted victory to launch an anti TikTok campaign that included and get a load of this, placing op eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that actually originated on Facebook, and p

ushing to draw political reporters and local politicians into helping take down its biggest competitor, dirty, dirty employees with targeted victory work to undermine TikTok through a. Wide media and lobbying campaign, portraying the fast growing app as a danger to American children and society. According to internal emails shared with The Washington Post, one of the directors of this firm that Facebook had hired or meta had hired wrote in an email in February of 2022, saying that targeted victo

ry needs to get the message out that while meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat, especially as a foreign owned app is number one in sharing data that young teens are using. When asked about their decision to pay a right wing firm to attack its competitor, a spokesperson for meta didn't even deny it, saying, quote, we believe all platforms, including TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success, with a meta backed firm planting stories about

the national security threat TikTok poses to the US. It's way harder to to determine whether a TikTok ban has any real merit, but there's money working on the other side of this debate, too. We learned earlier that former President Donald Trump, who once tried to ban TikTok through executive order before getting blocked by the courts, is now suddenly against the ban. Looks like the former president took a dip in the swamp. A lobbyist Trump is extremely familiar with is Kellyanne Conway. Turns o

ut that the former former senior Trump aide is being paid by the Conservative Club for growth to advocate for TikTok in Congress. In fact, she met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to chat about the app at least ten times in recent months. But that's likely not the only reason Trump had a change of heart on this TikTok ban. Politico reports that billionaire investor and club for growth donor Jeff Yass holds a 15% stake in TikTok's parent company, ByteDance. Club for growth leaders have been vocal o

pponents of moves to ban TikTok. Club for growth president David McIntosh has been in meetings on The Hill with Conway about the issue, according to one of the people familiar with the meetings. Former President Donald Trump praised Yass as fantastic when they were both at a club for growth retreat as the presumptive Republican nominee. Quartz Yass to help his presidential campaign with that cold, hard cash, of course. Shortly after the meeting, Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday quote, if you

get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zucker, schmuck will double their business. It's all about the money and even Steve Bannon is saying so. The connection between Yass and TikTok did not go unnoticed by former Trump campaign manager and white House adviser Steve Bannon, who suggested in a social media post of his own that Yass deep pockets was behind Trump's newfound appreciation for TikTok. Bannon shared an Axios article titled Inside Trump's TikTok flip flop and added simple Yass coin. Look, I t

ell you all of this so you don't forget what politicians really fight for themselves and their legalized bribes. Look, this isn't about protecting American consumers or children or national security. That's a laughable assertion when you consider that the president himself is currently on TikTok. The real battle playing out in Congress is about power, money, and which business interests get to accumulate more of it. Though if the ban succeeds, it could politically harm one person in particular.

I don't think it'll be helpful with young voters. But you know my argument here, yes, it has to do with young people. But taking a step back, I just think it's bad policy. Successful politics is addition and multiplication, and cutting out a large group of young voters is not the best known strategy for reelection. Now, President Joe Biden has said that he plans to sign this bill. Okay. I mean, look, to be fair to Joe Biden, I guess young voters had already soured on him for a whole host of othe

r reasons, including his handling of the war in Gaza. But it's true that signing a TikTok ban into law wouldn't help him with his reelection efforts. But there are massive hurdles before a final bill even makes its way to Biden's desk. Now, the fate of the bill rests with the Senate, where the effort to ban TikTok will likely fail. Remember, there's that pesky legislative filibuster in the Senate where, rather than a simple majority, 60 lawmakers would have to vote in favor of a bill in order fo

r it to even pass. But there are other challenges before the Senate even votes on the issue. For one, the Senate doesn't even have its own version of the bill, and efforts to draft one earlier had failed. It had fallen short. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says that he'll review the House bill and maybe consider holding a Senate vote on that. But there are other issues, too, like, you know, the Constitution and our rights to freedom of expression. Congressman Ro Khanna elaborated on these

concerns this morning. You actually voted against this bill? Why? On free speech grounds? On the First Amendment, there are two key principles why the courts would strike this down if the Senate took it up. It's not the least restrictive measure of protecting people's data and privacy. You could pass an internet bill of rights. You could do things like a financial penalty. A ban is extreme, and you have to have the least restrictive means. Secondly, you need, under the Supreme Court, an alternat

ive means of communication. And it is very hard to reach TikTok's almost billion users, particularly international users for Americans. And I don't think the court would think that their alternative means of communication here. I do have concerns, which is why I would have been fine with a forced sale. But the ban, if the sale doesn't happen, goes too far. My concerns are protecting Americans data and privacy, and making sure that doesn't get into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. But we

can do that by passing an internet bill of rights. I mean, when TikTok was initially established, it had to go through the same controls of foreign direct investment. And if there were actually evidence that there was huge propaganda coming out of these, the platform, then that would be one thing. And then you may be able to restrict it given the First Amendment concerns. Let me just elaborate a little more on what Congressman Khanna said in that interview. I love that he also wants to focus on

some of the behavior of US based social media platforms and what they do with our data, how they collect our data and how opaque their algorithms tend to be. So I think that's the right focus. And look, I'm not a constitutional expert or legal expert. I can only go based off of what the chatter is among other legal experts. And they say that the government is not only infringing on the free expression of American consumers with this potential TikTok ban, but that lawmakers are also violating th

e constitution by specifically targeting a business that's operating in the United States. Democratic Senator Mark Warner echoed Khanna's statements, saying that he has concerns about the constitutionality of an approach that named specific companies. So, look, I don't know if there's merit behind that constitutionality argument, and I guess we'll wait and see what happens. But considering the structural challenges within the Senate, the competing moneyed interests at play, and how lawmakers oft

en prove how little they care about their own constituents, I can promise one thing that the outcome ain't about making things better for you. So just keep that in mind and we'll see how it plays out.