The focus on TikTok misses the real threat of Big Tech, says information studies professor Ramesh Srinivasan.
In a rare bipartisan effort, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday requiring TikTok to be sold by its China-based owner, ByteDance, or face a ban throughout the United States. Backers claim the popular social media app could give the Chinese government access to U.S. residents’ personal data and potentially affect the 2024 elections. The fight over TikTok comes at a time of rising anti-China rhetoric in both major parties, as well as alarm among conservatives that content supportive of Palestinian rights and critical of Israel is popular with many young users of the app. The fate of the TikTok legislation now rests in the Senate, and President Joe Biden says he will sign it into law if it reaches his desk. Former President Donald Trump, who tried to crack down on TikTok while in office, now opposes the effort. “It is singling out TikTok and China without any evidence whatsoever that they are engaging in any nefarious or spying activity,” Ramesh Srinivasan, professor of information studies at UCLA, says of the legislation. “What we need is expansive, comprehensive digital rights legislation that really applies to every social media company and gives Americans power over their own data.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: In a rare show of bipartisanship, House lawmakers overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to force the social media app TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to either sell the app or face a ban in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: TikTok has more than 170 million users in the United States alone, the largest TikTok audience in the world. This is Republican — this is Congressmember Raja Krishnamoorthi, but first, Republican Mike Gallagher.
AMY GOODMAN: Last voice is Democrat Congress — the Democratic Congressmember Raja Krishnamoorthi.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The bill that could lead to a TikTok ban was also backed by Democrats. This is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
AMY GOODMAN: Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday said he’ll, quote, “push” for the Senate to approve the bill, which President Joe Biden has said he would sign. But other Republicans oppose the bill. This is Georgia Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene.
AMY GOODMAN: The bill is the greatest threat to TikTok since the Trump administration, when Trump tried to implement a TikTok crackdown, that was struck down in the federal courts. But he did flip his position, Trump did, last week after he met with the billionaire investor, GOP megadonor Jeff Yass, who has a 15% stake in TikTok’s parent company, has spent a fortune paying for lobbyists to preserve TikTok.
Meanwhile, rights groups like the ACLU say such a ban would violate the right to free speech.
For more, we’re joined by Ramesh Srinivasan, professor of information studies at UCLA, host of the podcast Utopias, author of Beyond the Valley: How Innovators Around the World Are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow, joining us from Oaxaca, Mexico.
Ramesh, thanks so much for being back with us.
