‘ We do n’t want to overshoot the target here but we do n’t want to miss,’ says Marco Rubio.
Before putting it to a ballot, the U.S. Senate will evaluate and change a bill that might outlaw TikTok.
The policy explicitly targets TikTok and its family business ByteDance, both of which are based in Beijing but have their headquarters in the Cayman Islands. This is a source of contention.
Many in the Senate think that this is needless and could undermine the bill’s propriety.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash. ) expressed hope that the bill would be amended to protect Americans without focusing on particular businesses.
She said,” I think there are ways to talk about this in a broad sense without really focusing on anyone or even any nation.”
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The bill would give the president diverse new authorities to urge the divestiture of almost any social media company instantly owned or perhaps “indirectly controlled” through parent companies, subsidies, or affiliates in China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia.
According to the bill’s opponents, targeting ByteDance is necessary to combat a perceived threat to national security posed by what the company’s power group, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), poses.
The CCP owns a so-called “golden discuss” in ByteDance that provides it exclusive voting rights on the board of directors, but the majority of the shares are owned by non-Chinese owners.
Yet many China hawks in the Senate think that the expenses will need changes in order to make it to the government’s desk in this regard.
Sen. Marco Rubio ( R- Fla. ) said that “modifications” were necessary to ensure the bill remained potent but not overly expansive.
” In the end, we want a nice piece of legislation”, Mr. Rubio said. ” We do n’t want to overshoot the target here but we do n’t want to miss”.
Also, Sen Ted Cruz ( R- Texas ) said that he supported the act but that amendments may be needed before it could be passed.
” I’m glad the House passed]it ] and I think TikTok poses a real serious threat”, Mr. Cruz said.
” I think the]Senate ] Commerce Committee should take it up and mark it up and consider it on the merits and consider amendments”.
Some critics, however, say that the costs does not solve the problems it purports to.
To that end, Sen. Ed Markey ( D- Mass. ) said that American social media apps even posed mental health, propaganda, and foreign impact hazards.
A “greater risk” for American households than TikTok, he claimed, are American tech firms ‘ failure to address the negative health effects of social media use on younger people.
According to Mr. Markey,” A discussion of TikTok that does n’t discuss all the other American social media companies is missing the forest for the trees.”
” We need laws that address the obvious and pressing danger that teens and kids in this region face. TikTok is portion of it, but so are all the British social media companies”.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore. ) also argued that the act was dangerous because it could be used to transfer control of a Chinese business to an autocratic country that was not legally bound by the costs, such as Saudi Arabia.
” Senator Rubio and I have been working for some time on making sure that Americans ‘ data does n’t get into hostile foreign hands and I’m troubled by the fact that you might have one overseer, in effect, China, replaced by another overseer, the Saudis”.
” I’m going to be thinking this through carefully”, he added.
Some who hoped a March 20 classified presentation by intelligence officers may encourage more frequency in the Senate’s committees are likely to be disappointed by the rigorous review the costs will presently experience.
” I think there was a reason why, when this brief was given on the House side to the Energy and Commerce Committee, afterwards they voted 50 to nothing to move the legislation”, said Sen. Mark Warner ( D- Va. ).
Mr. Warner made reference to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s use of a haphazard rule last week to push the bill through without giving the public a week’s worth of notice of the hearing.
Detractors claimed the action was taken to stop the bill from growing and that the classified intelligence briefing did not offer any unique insights into the threats posed by TikTok.
Joseph Lord wrote this report, which was published.
