In 2022, Center for Democracy and Technology removed more than$ 100, 000 from a Chinese-owned app.
A U.S. ban on TikTok could “embolden authoritarian censorship,” according to NBC News, and it is doing so through a think tank that has removed more than$ 100, 000 from the Chinese-owned app.
In a Sunday statement titled,” A TikTok Ban May Elevate Authoritarian Censorship, Professionals Warn”, NBC writer Kevin Collier cites” reviewers” of a bipartisan bill that would ban TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese business owner, ByteDance, extracting from the business. Included among those” critics” is Kate Ruane, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Free Expression Project. For Ruane, targeting the game would surrender America’s “moral power” and provide “license to autocratic governments around the world to do the same to U. S. based systems”.
Missing from Ruane’s research, nevertheless, is any reporting of her business’s financial ties to TikTok. The Center for Democracy and Technology took between$ 100, 000 and$ 500, 000 from the Taiwanese- owned app in 2022, according to its site, making TikTok one of its largest contributors that time. It also accepted between$ 50, 000 and$ 100, 000 from the game in 2021.
The disclosure comes as TikTok scrambles to ward off the forced buyout expenses, which the House of Representatives largely passed last month. TikTok’s users were prompted to enter their zip codes and contact their congressmen as the costs passed through the lower room, which has raised some questions about the phone’s public relations strategies. A rise in phone calls to parliamentary offices, including those from teenagers who threatened to kill themselves if the software was banned, was the result of the blitz.
A House member who voted against the costs took cash from a TikTok lawyer in at least one instance. That part, California Democratic senator Robert Garcia, received$ 500 from Michael Bloom, TikTok’s director of government relations.
Requests for comment were not responded to by NBC or the Center for Democracy and Technology.
The think tank, which is based in Washington, D. C., bills itself as the “leading democratic, nonprofit corporation fighting to improve civil rights and civil rights in the modern age”. It has emerged as one of the major competitors of the TikTok bill, with the core signing a letter to Congress on March 6 to urge them to oppose the bill.
” H. R. 7521 is censorship—plain and easy”, the letter says. The passage of this policy would violate the legal right to freedom of conversation for millions of Americans.
While another expert cited in the NBC piece, former Obama administration official Chris Painter, suggests U. S. lawmakers are targeting TikTok because they do n’t “like what was being said” on the app, the bill’s sponsors—Reps. Mike Gallagher ( R., Wis. ) and Raja Krishnamoorthi ( D., Ill. ) —introduced the legislation to address national security concerns.
According to a former ByteDance professional, the game is owned by China-based business ByteDance, which means the Chinese Communist Party has” high access” to the well-known social media site and its data.
While doing so, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who was scheduled to testify in a legislative hearing in March 2023, refrained from revealing what would happen if the Chinese government required the organization to move over user information. A Foreign national security law passed in 2017 makes it illegal for private companies to tell private businesses to do so when requested and forbids them from disclosing the work.
On its website, the Center for Democracy and Technology says its “financial followers have no effect or control over CDT’s jobs or interests, including the content of education courses, research, written accounts, or other work product”.
Still, the think tank’s gift acceptance policy says donors can send financial gifts with “restricted purposes”. In those cases, the center will “respect the intent of the donor”, so long as the “restrictions” are consistent with its “mission and priorities”.
In addition to TikTok, the Center for Democracy and Technology has accepted six- figure contributions from other tech giants such as Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Google.
