Consultant Ro Khanna, the California Democrat representing Silicon Valley, laid out his case towards a sweeping ban of the social media platform TikTok on Sunday after opposing laws that overwhelmingly handed the Home final week, saying the invoice can be ineffective.
The laws handed the Home, 352 to 65, on Wednesday, with Mr. Khanna amongst 50 Democrats, principally from the progressive wing, who voted towards it. He stated the main target needs to be on enhancing knowledge privateness legal guidelines moderately than banning a social media platform.
“What’s the precise proof that you just couldn’t move a knowledge privateness legislation or legislation banning knowledge going to a overseas nation, and get that carried out that approach?” Mr. Khanna, one of many progressive Democrats, stated on ABC’s “This Week.” “The frustration is that now we have not been in a position to move these knowledge privateness legal guidelines. These legal guidelines would additionally cowl knowledge brokers that are promoting knowledge to Chinese language corporations. This invoice shouldn’t be really addressing that situation.”
Those that opposed the invoice additionally cited considerations about violating People’ proper to free speech and hurting small-business house owners who depend on TikTok for his or her advertising and marketing and gross sales.
The laws mandates that TikTok’s guardian firm, ByteDance, promote its U.S. property inside six months after the invoice is signed right into a legislation or face an outright ban in america. Supporters of the measure fear concerning the Chinese language authorities getting access to the information of roughly 150 million U.S. residents who use the video app and influencing the general public debate in America by tweaking the app’s algorithms to its favor.
Whereas recognizing the considerations raised by TikTok’s critics, Mr. Khanna stated on Sunday that the safety threats from the Chinese language authorities could possibly be tackled extra successfully with “a narrowly tailor-made legislation” that forbids any switch of personal knowledge of People to China and different overseas entities.
The US doesn’t have a federal knowledge privateness legislation that restricts the sale of non-public knowledge, doubtlessly permitting overseas entities to buy the non-public info of thousands and thousands of People. Mr. Khanna has vowed for years to move a brand new legislation that imposes restrictions on tech corporations’ means to gather and revenue from their customers’ knowledge.
The invoice’s destiny within the Senate is unclear, however two senators — a Democrat and a Republican — stated on Sunday that that they had reservations concerning the laws whereas expressing sympathy for calls to ban the app.
Senator Ben Cardin, Democrat of Maryland and the chairman of the Overseas Relations Committee, stated on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was open to supporting the Home invoice however had not made a last choice.
“We’ll see how the Senate needs to take this up,” Mr. Cardin stated. “However I would really like us to get to the end line and supply the guardrails which are obligatory.”
Senator Invoice Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, partly echoed Mr. Cardin’s sentiments whereas emphasizing the necessity for swift motion towards TikTok.
“I’d prefer to see the ultimate language, however I’m actually predisposed to vote for it,” Mr. Cassidy stated on “Meet the Press.” “Anybody who doesn’t assume that the Chinese language Communist Celebration want to affect how we expect in our nation simply doesn’t perceive what they do.”
