TikTok Ban – creators and business owners held the news conference to express concerns over House GOP legislation that would force the owners of the popular Chinese social media app to sell the platform or face a ban in the U.S.
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Former President Trump reversed course and now opposes a ban on social media giant TikTok.
Former President Trump now opposes banning TikTok, reversing his previous position. However, his new stance, combined with a full-court press from TikTok and its millions of users, is not influencing his fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill.
House Republican leaders plan to vote Wednesday on legislation that would remove TikTok from U.S. app stores unless its parent firm, China-based ByteDance, agrees to divest the popular video-based app.
Even some of Trump’s conservative congressional allies said they don’t mind criticizing their party’s presumptive presidential nominee for his sudden TikTok stance.
“Well, he is wrong. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, stated that the president had previously issued executive orders and taken measures, but has now changed his mind. “This isn’t the first or last occasion I’ve disagreed with the prior president. The TikTok issue is rather obvious.”
A ban is unreasonable and foolish. For me
It would result in a loss of revenue… “It would mean I would lose a million followers,” Estenson explained.
Other TikTokers use their platform to give back. William McCoy, sometimes known as Izzy White, is a former heroin dealer and ex-felon from Baltimore. He stated that he utilizes his platform to help homeless individuals in his town.
“Without TikTok, basically all the mouths that I feed every day wouldn’t get fed every day,” McCoy said in an interview.
Lawmakers from both parties have backed a plan that would require TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to divest the app within six months of the law’s passage or face a national ban.
Democrats and Republicans have expressed alarm over China’s stake in the app in terms of national security.
However, Jameel Jaffer, a civil liberties attorney at Columbia University, believes a ban is not the solution to this particular problem.
“TikTok isn’t the only platform that collects this type of data. Many other platforms, including American platforms, acquire that information, which is then made available to data brokers, who sell it to foreign governments,” Jaffer explained.
Currently, federal and state government personnel are generally forbidden from using TikTok on government-issued smartphones. Montana became the first state to prohibit the app from being used on any personal device in May 2023. (Prior to the ban’s implementation, a judge stopped the measure in November 2023. (The state has now challenged the verdict.)
The bill, which passed unanimously through the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, appears to have the necessary support to pass the House.
President Biden and House Speaker Mike tells
House Speaker Mike Johnson supports the bill, telling reporters this week that TikTok is “actively undermining our economy and security.”The bill, which passed unanimously through the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, appears to have the necessary support to pass the House.
President Biden has stated that he would be willing to sign the legislation if it reaches his desk.
The House is gearing up for a Wednesday vote on bipartisan legislation that could lead to a ban on TikTok, one of the most widely used apps in the world with an estimated 170 million users in the United States alone.
The House is gearing up for a Wednesday vote on bipartisan legislation that could lead to a ban on TikTok, one of the most widely used apps in the world with an estimated 170 million users in the United States alone.
House GOP moves ahead with TikTok vote as Trump voices opposition to possible ban
The possibility of a potential ban has outraged thousands of content creators who rely on the site as their main source of income.