This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
A U. S. act that if approved may force the price of the video sharing platform TikTok has sparked mixed emotions from Chinese critics, with some drawing similarities with Chinese internet censorship and others marveling at the heated discussion around the game.
TikTok, whose parent firm is China’s ByteDance, has 170 million regular American people. It has  , sparked safety concerns , in Washington that Beijing would use the software for advertising or to influence American public opinion, especially leading up to November’s national poll.  ,
The legislation passed , Wednesday in the U. S. House of Representatives would ban the app in America if ByteDance does n’t divest its controlling stake in the social media app. U. S. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the bill if it is approved by the lower house Senate.
Some Taiwanese social media users criticized the move, saying it was related to repression.
” It’s the same over there]as in China ], common bans on anything, just that the procedure is more troublesome over it”, commented @LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLsm from Guangdong, in a guide to the blocking of Twitter and Facebook for people inside the , Great Firewall of internet censorship.
” There’s going to be a rush of white people trying to get over the Great Firewall]into China ] now”, quipped Hantang_Lengyue_1130 from Beijing.
” From a Chinese standpoint, I hope TikTok can continue to occur in the United States”, another person, 1_lowkey_1 from Gansu, commented. ” From another perspective, this gives me a feeling of uncertainty. Is this thing really getting American therefore addicted? That’s powerful”.
Forced to give Beijing person information?
Lawmakers supporting the bill say that TikTok is required under Chinese legislation to expose National customer data to Beijing upon ask and say it could be forced to change its algorithms to encourage Chinese advertising.
TikTok has denied any interference from Beijing, and China’s foreign ministry has said there is” no evidence” of any threat to U. S. national security.
” I would prefer them to remove it than sell it — that way the American people will take up arms and fight the U. S. government to the end”, @Golden_Annunciation_Bird_999 wrote.
User @Xiao_Xianyu added from Beijing:” Rednecks are the angriest, because their main platform is about to be blocked”.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Thursday accused the Washington of using” sheer robbers ‘ logic to try every means to snatch from others all the good things that they have”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs further hit back on Friday with a commentary titled,” The Truth About the So- Called Freedom of Speech in the United States” . ,
The TikTok bill “violates the rights granted to the American people by the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, suppresses and damages the freedom of more than 150 million American TikTok users, and sets a worrying precedent”, the op- ed piece said.
Protecting free speech
A U. S. based Chinese student majoring in information technology who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals said he does n’t use the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, citing privacy concerns.
But he said he supported others who wanted to use the app’s equivalent in the United States, and appeared not to support a legal move against the TikTok:” The rights guaranteed by the First Amendment are very important”, the student said.
” If there are individual cases of data disclosure, they can just fine them, like they do Facebook”, he said.
In Zhejiang, @The_romantic_and_talented_Mi_Duoduo thought the potential forced sale was n’t a good idea, either.
” Prohibition will only make it impossible for the people at the bottom, and there will be more and more social unrest”, they commented.
“]TikTok ] has overturned American imperialism at its root, along with its hegemony over public opinion”, commented @na_jia丶 from Guizhou,  ,
Meanwhile, @not_a_thief added from Hubei:” The United States was founded on a platform of freedom of speech” . ,
A Washington- based software engineer who hails from China, and who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told RFA Mandarin that the best approach was to build a U. S.company that could compete adequately with TikTok.
‘ That’s not going to happen here’
James A. Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, recommended using a U. S. initial public offering, or IPO, to allow TikTok’s current owners ByteDance to cash out of the company and make a profit in doing so.
” An IPO on Wall Street would provide a vehicle for the Committee on Foreign Investment ( CFIUS) to intervene and impose conditions on the IPO to mitigate risk”, Lewis wrote in a , March 13 commentary , on the Center’s website.
But he warned that there is” a larger and more complicated problem of Chinese software use in U. S. apps and networks”, calling on the Department of Commerce to investigate the scope of that problem.
” The United States should manage the risk created by deep technological connections to a hostile and untrustworthy nation that is undertaking the largest espionage campaign in history”, Lewis said.
While not all Chinese technology creates risk, genuine risks can be mitigated, including those attributed to TikTok, he said.
Xia Ming, professor of political science at New York’s City University noted that LinkedIn was forced to shut down in China last year, and that the TikTok bill could be seen as a retaliatory measure.  ,
” If you kick me, I have to kick you back”, Xia said. But he said freedom of speech is unlikely to be affected by the move.
” The fundamental difference is that, if you listen to the Voice of America or Radio Free Asia in China, the state security police will come for you”, Xia said. ” That’s not going to happen in the United States”.
