TikTok Divestiture Debate
The cluster focuses on US legislation requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok from Chinese ownership, with debates on whether it's a true ban, national security risks, free speech concerns, and comparisons to Chinese app restrictions.
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If Bytedance was violating U.S. laws a “ban” would not be necessary to prevent them from continuing to do so. The executive order is based on a concrete factual assertion: “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” [1]. The injunction we are discussing results from a challenge to that assertion.[1] <a href="https
Because TikTok is very popular and owned by a company in an adversarial nation?
This wouldn't be the first time that the US Government forced a sale of a company because it's owned by China. This happened in 2019 with Grindr[1], and no one really cared or noticed. The language being used here isn't even correct, since this isn't a "ban". There was a bill a year or two ago that would've done that explicitly, but it didn't really go anywhere. Should this bill pass, it puts other companies in the position of complying (Apple, Google etc)
US didn't ban tiktok. They banned adversary owned tiktok
Nobody thinks TikTok is going to be used to overthrow the US government. TikTok is getting banned because doing so is in the interests of American tech companies, particularly Facebook. Why should they have to compete on an uneven playing field, after all?
It bears repeating that this bill only bans tiktok if it isn't spun out of Bytedance. Given how American owned social media companies are treated in China, this doesn't seem entirely unfair.
TikTok isn’t banned, it is merely required to not be owned by a Chinese company. It’s possible this results in a de facto ban but we don’t know yet.Similarly, other regulations may become so onerous as to result in de facto bans. There’s not really a sharp distinction.
Whose speech would be limited if the US banned TikTok?
Action against Tiktok doesn't preclude action against US companies
TikTok is not being "banned" by this bill. It's being prohibited from being owned by a "foreign adversary" (a defined term in US Code), with the threat of being banned from app stores and hosting providers if not divested.