So last week the House of Representatives passed a bill 352 to 65 stating that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, must sell its stake in the app within six months or face a ban. The House passed this just over a week after it was introduced which is pretty darn quick.
The Reasons for Potentially Banning TikTok
In a word, national security. “Those who believe TikTok is a national security threat say the threat it is two-pronged: that the app could be used by the Chinese Communist Party to illegally gather US user data, and/or that its algorithm could be used to manipulate and influence US public opinion, especially in an election year. “ (Jessica Yellin, News Not Noise )
The Reasons Not To
Loss of Income. Many Creators and Small Business who have found monetary success building a following on TikTok fear a loss of their income.
Free Speech. TikTok has a very large audience— 173 Million in the U.S.. Some argue that interfering (aka forcing a sale or a ban) with such a large distribution platform is removing access to information. According to the WSJ, a legal battle would force courts to weigh the government's national security objectives against First Amendment rights of TikTok users.
Consolidated Power/Influence. If TikTok is out of the picture, that means power becomes more concentrated in the hands of fewer social media outlets.
How a Ban Could Happen
This bill as currently written would need to be signed into law and then TikTok would need to decide that they will not sell but shut it down instead.
President Biden said in his State of the Union address that he would sign a bill if it came his way. And Former President Trump also said he would be supportive (he had previously said he would not be).
However, the momentum behind the bill has slowed now that its with the Senate. “Senators — some of whom have their own versions of bills targeting TikTok — will need to be convinced. Other legislation on the runway could be prioritized. And the process of taking the House bill and potentially rewriting it to suit the Senate could be time consuming.” (Reuters)
And, CEO Shou Chew intimated in his response to the House passing that they would shut down rather then sell. Watch him here.
My $0.02
While I can’t predict what will happen in the Senate—I was pretty confident last year that we were done with daylight saving time after it passed the House and yet we all turned our clocks ahead last week. Plenty have speculated that this will go the way of the daylight saving bill. Congress has yet to pass any meaningful legislation against big tech. But then again technology safety does seem to be one of the few topics with bipartisan support.
But here’s what I think might happen while we wait and IF it passes.
While we wait: As we sit in uncertainty, TikTok users and creators may start hedging their bets— i.e. searching elsewhere for content & distribution. That could mean an uptick for OG’s like Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube.
If it passes: TikTok will probably shut it down but it won’t be overnight. Its more likely that it will slowly fadeaway. First new users won’t be able to sign up. Then existing users will no longer get version updates including new features and bug fixes making the quality degrade over time.
If it passes AND there is a sale: U.S. TikTok would need its own separate algorithm and engineering team which means the experience would begin to diverge from OG TikTok. Different might not be as good.
Paying subscribers keep scrolling to get my Curated Hot Takes from Outraged TikTok-ers
Some are silly and some are serious but the last one is a response from a TikTok-er whose content was clipped and used on Inside Edition to dismiss the influencers who disagree with the bill. Its definitely worth the watch!
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