TikTok Bill Will Have Serious Consequences, Elon Musk Warns As New US Ban On The Horizon
We’ve been hearing about a possible TikTok ban in the US for quite some time now but just when you thought the matter had died down comes more news in this regard.
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is having his say on the reports of a possible TikTok bill that will soon come into play, referring to the act as sheer censorship. Moreover, he added that he is not in favor of that decision, warning the tech world of serious implications if and when that gets into effect.
The world’s second richest person added how the new rule isn’t just about one single app but it’s more regarding control from the government’s end and new means for censorship too. He explained through the X app that if it was solely linked to the platform, it would be cited as foreign control but that’s not the case here.
Musk generated responses on this front and asserted that it’s quite like the functioning of trojan horses that give the head of state complete power to insert website bans and target various American firms along the way.
Moreover, the country’s head of state will insert more power to restrict not only social media platforms but websites too as mentioned by Rep Massie via a recent tweet on X.
So all foreign adversaries in this regard could be webpages, desktops, mobile apps, and whatnot.
While the platform is mainly related to giving users the best mobile experience, it’s present on the web, quite like what’s similar to apps such as Facebook and Instagram as well as X.
But on the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got bill sponsors having their say and arguing about how this is not sponsorship. It’s not linked to speech regulation but is more focused on the likes of controlling all foreign adversaries that it feels are under threat at this moment in time.
There is one way by which the popular social media app TikTok could work its way around the US ban and that is severing ties with parent firm ByteDance which is located in China.
While no one imagines the platform to be banned as a whole, it just might happen.
It’s too soon to speculate as whatever remains is yet to be seen. We’ve already seen Trump show his support for TikTok, favoring it over Meta. Furthermore, he referred to the latter as the enemy of the people.
As far as the Biden admin is concerned, they have announced how they are in great favor of displaying support for this bill.
But when it comes to the Republican party, they are more divided than ever.
The American bill was rolled out by the House Energy as well as the Commerce Committee in the past week. We’ve seen the American House of Representatives mention how a vote would decide what happens next and that will take place today morning.
We’ve already witnessed TikTok come under great scrutiny by several leading American states. This includes close to 39 different state-level bans throughout the US alone. This just prevents it from being utilized by a host of government devices arising at the national level.
Remember, we’ve seen India already put a complete ban on the app years ago while other nations just prevent the use of the app on devices run or owned by the government.
But when it comes to a complete ban in the US, we are yet to see that take place as it has received massive criticism from different courts.
Image: DIW-Aigen
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