美国为什么要不断立法，坚持封杀TikTok?｜字节跳动｜TikTok｜周受资｜bytedance｜中美｜川普｜拜登｜王局拍案20240319

On March 6,

American TikTok users

suddenly received a pop-up

The pop-up's title read "Stop TikTok from Being Banned"

Below it said the US Congress

is now planning to pass a bill

that aims to completely ban TikTok

The right to freedom of speech protected by the Constitution for 170 million TIKTOK users is being threatened

Hurry and speak out

Call your congressional representatives

Tell them

what TIKTOK means to you

Ask them to vote against it

Below, there was even a considerate red button

The red button below read

"Call now"

If you pressed it

it would automatically link to the office of the congressional representative in the TikTok user's district

How considerate

So think about it

TikTok has 170 million users in the United States

So, on that day

many US congress members' phones

were overwhelmed with calls

When many people called

they even asked what Congress is

What does a congress member mean?

Actually, the United States is quite interesting

On one hand, its entire system framework was established by elites

and is governed by elites

But many ordinary people

actually don't understand the operation of this elite-governed national system

They only hear that, oh no

TikTok might be banned, that's not good

When scrolling through short videos every day

Watching beauties and animals

It's so enjoyable

How can it be banned?

So they would call their congress members

In the process of calling

they actually don't know

what this really means

Speaking of TikTok

Why did it call on US users

to call their congress members?

Actually, the reason is quite simple

Because on March 7,

a committee under the US House of Representatives

named the Committee on Commerce and Energy

was about to vote on a bill

The name of the bill

is to prevent

the harm of applications controlled by

hostile foreign governments to the US

This bill

is actually tailor-made for TikTok

According to the US legislative process

this legislative process first starts with the US

Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate

through their committees

drafting a bill

This bill

has to be voted on in the committee

After passing the vote

then it can be submitted

to either the House or Senate for a vote

After the House votes

it goes to the Senate

After the Senate votes

it returns to the House

Both houses of Congress must pass the bill

before it can be submitted to the President of the United States for signature.

At this point, the President

can either agree or disagree.

If agreed upon,

the bill is considered passed

and becomes an enforceable legal document in the United States.

If the President disagrees,

then the bill goes back to both houses of Congress.

At this point, there are two choices:

One choice is to just drop it,

since the President vetoed it.

The other option is to vote again,

but this time the requirements are higher.

Originally, passing a bill required

a 50% majority.

Now, if a 2/3 majority is reached,

and both houses achieve this 2/3 majority,

they can override the President's veto

and forcibly pass it into law.

But if it's just a simple majority,

then it cannot become law.

So this is a delicate balance

between the executive and legislative branches.

It's a very delicate balance.

So, on March 7, this bill,

voted on by a specific committee,

officially took its first step towards legislation.

So TikTok got anxious,

launching a campaign in the US,

urging the public to pressure US congress members.

Think about it, these congress members

are elected by voters in their own districts.

So the opinions of their constituents

usually exert significant pressure on them.

So TikTok was really going all out,

but unexpectedly, on March 7,

this bill was passed by the Committee on Commerce and Energy

with a striking margin of 50:0.

Meaning

TikTok's all-out effort

At least on March 7th,

no effect was shown.

Breaking News: The House of Representatives on Capitol Hill has just passed a bill that could ban TikTok.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill to ban the use of Chinese-owned applications within the United States.

Unless TikTok is sold to a U.S. company within four months.

Our intention is to keep TikTok operational.

But not under the control of the CCP.

So today, let's talk about

TikTok and the U.S. legislature,

in the past few years,

regarding TikTok's development in the U.S.,

how it should evolve,

whether it should be restricted,

all sorts of legal battles have been fought.

As we just mentioned about TikTok,

it currently has 170 million users in the U.S.,

which is quite significant.

Considering the population of the U.S. is not even 400 million,

and if you subtract minors and

many who are illiterate,

who don't quite understand, right?

It means that among adults,

actually, the majority,

about sixty to seventy percent,

have downloaded TikTok on their phones.

Over the past many years,

it has always been the app with the most users

in the U.S. app store.

But as TikTok developed in the U.S.,

it also faced some skepticism domestically.

Many people questioned,

suggesting TikTok could interfere with U.S. politics.

For example, four years ago,

during the U.S. presidential election,

some young people really disliked Trump,

so they posted on TikTok,

or made videos calling for a "seat-filling" movement.

What is a "seat-filling" movement?

Because, you know,

Trump was going to give a speech,

and you had to reserve a spot at the venue, right?

This venue had 20,000 seats.

They went ahead and reserved seats,

but then didn't show up.

So when Trump arrived,

out of 20,000 seats, only 3,000 were filled.

Right?

This made his influence seem lesser.

So you see, this is the influence

on the U.S. presidential election.

So in 2020,

there was a round of discussions in Congress,

discussing,

demanding TikTok

to sell its assets.

Otherwise, it would be delisted.

The process in 2020,

after all the discussions,

did not turn into an official bill.

Later, after Biden took office,

he did not support this bill,

and so the bill was stalled.

By 2022,

another round of questioning emerged,

and TikTok's CEO in the U.S., Zhou Shouzi,

even went to Congress for a hearing,

and made a statement.

At that time, it was said

that

federal government employees in the U.S.,

on their phones and office computers,

cannot download TikTok.

The main topic of discussion is

Up to this point

The United States has had a total of 37 states successively introduce laws

Prohibiting federal employees from using their personal cell phones

And office computers to download TikTok

But by the time 2024 arrived,

It equates to TikTok's opposition opinions

Becoming even louder

The United States' Energy and Commerce Committee

Specifically introduced a new law

This new law is pretty much the same as it was four years ago

It requires TikTok

To completely divest its assets

What does asset divestiture mean?

It means TikTok

Must complete total asset separation from China's ByteDance

That is, you have to sell it off

If you don't sell it

TikTok will be removed from the app stores in the United States

So, Apple and Google

Won't be able to keep the TikTok app

Available on there anymore

For TikTok, this could be

A disaster of epic proportions

This is the ins and outs of the whole incident

So,

On March 7th,

After the United States Energy and Commerce Committee voted in favor,

On March 13th,

The United States House of Representatives also voted

In this vote,

There were 352 votes in favor,

62 votes against,

It was a landslide majority

You should know, in the United States House of Representatives

The seats of the Democratic and Republican parties are about the same

With 352 votes in favor,

It means that the Democrats and Republicans

On the issue of banning TikTok,

a consensus was largely reached.

There were only 62 votes against,

among these 62 votes against,

about a dozen came from the Republican Party,

and around 50 came from the Democratic Party.

But after all, it's an absolute minority.

Of course, some people said the reason for

the more than 60 votes against

was also because TikTok

let go and mobilized the masses.

So, I took a look,

it's about this whole bill,

don't be fooled by this bill,

it was initiated by the U.S. Energy and Commerce Committee,

but actually, its behind-the-scenes operator is someone else.

This operator,

is a so-called U.S.-China Strategic Competition Special Committee.

This special committee

is not an American

permanent organization within the House of Representatives

It's a special committee

As the name suggests, it's established for a specific purpose

It was founded in January last year

How was it established?

Its inception actually dates back to 4 years ago

when a Republican congressman named McCarthy

considering the tense relations between the US and China over the years

established a special China Task Force

consisting of 14

Republican congressmen

discussing issues like the Taiwan issue

Chinese economic incursion

and the Uyghur issue

By 2022

the Republican Party became the majority

in the House of Representatives

Therefore

they upgraded this China Task Force

to a committee called the U.S.-China Competition over the Chinese Communist Party

Special Committee

This special committee

comprises 24

members of the U.S. House of Representatives

13 from the Republican Party

and 11 from the Democratic Party

These 24 congress members are quite notable

including 3 from the Appropriations Committee

8 from the Armed Services Committee

and 4 from

the Intelligence Committee

So, despite being small in number, their influence is significant

Especially the chairman

who is 39 years old this year

named Gallagher

Gallagher is quite young, only 39 years old

having served in the U.S. military for 7 years, he is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives

and has long been a hawkish figure towards China

After he took over the China Special Committee

you can see

that the committee's discussions are public

You can see that the top issue is TikTok

followed by the Taiwan issue, then the Uyghur issue

among seven or eight topics

So, after this special committee was established

the first thing they tackled was the TikTok bill

According to them, they took some confidential measures when working on this bill

Because if it wasn't discussed quietly

then due to the House of Representatives

and Senate being surrounded by various lobbying groups

they were worried that lobbying would prevent the bill from passing

They really are using every possible obstacle to oppose legislative actions

spending over half a million dollars

Just last quarter, there were seven different lobbying firms

involving disgusting former congress members

lobbying on behalf of TikTok

By the way, that should be illegal; congress members usually shouldn't be allowed to engage in lobbying activities.

So, after this special committee

brought out the TikTok bill

Since the special committee doesn't have the right to propose bills

they passed the bill to the Energy and Commerce Committee for a vote

That's roughly the whole story

Let's continue to analyze

the contents or reasons during the bill process

Why the US repeatedly seeks to ban TikTok

Here are mainly three reasons

The first reason is it might influence and manipulate public opinion

所谓操纵舆论是什么意思

What does manipulating public opinion mean?

Because everyone knows that TikTok is driven by algorithmic recommendations.

These algorithmic recommendations are based on the algorithm's understanding of human nature.

It thinks you might be interested in something and pushes that information to you.

So, what information gets pushed decides what content you see.

What content you see, and its click-through rate,

becomes a very important reference number

for the news or video itself.

This is a characteristic of new media dissemination.

So they say manipulating public opinion

means that TikTok actually intervenes manually through algorithm recommendations

manipulating what information a person can ultimately see

Then it decides the impact of this information on American public opinion

For example, they cited an example

saying that during this Israeli war

a lot of pro-Palestine comments suddenly appeared on TikTok

This is related to the Chinese government's stance

Your Chinese government supports Pakistan, not Israel, right?

So, there are also people in the US specifically studying

saying the characteristics of TikTok's public opinion

align with the Chinese government's speeches or stance, exactly the same

Basically consistent, so it proves it's controlling public opinion

That's the first point

The second point is collecting public information

Collecting public information is actually a common practice among internet companies now

Think about it, Google collects, so does Facebook

Because if you don't collect customer information, it's hard to do the current algorithm recommendations

Because the current algorithm recommendations are not just done by TikTok, others do it too

The third aspect is exposing personal information and tracking and positioning

This was discussed for a long time during the Federal Employee Bill two years ago

It was discussed for a long time

These are roughly the three reasons, so how to view these three reasons

I personally think these three reasons are somewhat far-fetched

Including the US intelligence agencies also accused TikTok

It could become a platform manipulated or utilized by the CCP

In this process, the US intelligence agencies have never presented concrete evidence

Proving the CCP indeed utilized TikTok to obtain US intelligence

Then what conclusion did they come to

It's not about what the Chinese government did

but about what the Chinese government could possibly do

Meaning they believe TikTok now in the US

constitutes such a large social influence

It provides a possibility for the Chinese government, even though it hasn't done so now

Why say it provides a possibility

Because although TikTok is a public company, the Chinese government

has this 1% golden share in the board

What does this 1% golden share mean

It means the Chinese government can intervene at will

TikTok's own internal algorithms

or content dissemination

Everyone knows Douyin is completely controlled in China

Because the Chinese government reviews its backend data at any time

Then the key is whether the Chinese government can control TikTok in the US

Then TikTok itself thinks it cannot

Because TikTok spent $1.5 billion, building an independent database in the US

Their representative said in the US Congress

Our database is completely isolated from China, you don't need to worry

In the past three years

We have spent billions of dollars building our Texas project

This project aims to build a firewall that will protect our American data and isolate it from our "other stuff"

Let me first ask you about the information collection related content

Yes, Senator, we have initiated a data deletion plan

I mentioned it a year ago

We have completed the first phase of data deletion

Through our data center outside the Oracle cloud infrastructure

Starting the second phase, in this phase, we will not only delete data from the data center

We will hire a third party to verify the work

Then we will proceed, you know, for example

We also deleted related data in our employees' computers

Before the Texas project

Whether all data collected by TikTok was shared with the Chinese government according to China's National Intelligence Law

Senator, we have not received any request from the Chinese government for data

We have also never provided any data to them

But now, US Congress members including many people in the intelligence community

are worried that this complete isolation cannot be fully achieved

For example, there's a very important reason

If you want to sell TikTok, doesn't it require the Chinese government's approval

Definitely needs the Chinese government's approval

If the Chinese government doesn't approve, can TikTok be sold

Then isn't it visible that the Chinese government can still control TikTok

So they believe that although TikTok has done data isolation

Actually, the Chinese government can still control TikTok

This is their most important reason, but saying is saying, doing is doing

I think this is all based on an assumption

Not based on evidence

So what does this mean, what does it imply?

I think this signifies a significant change.

You can see that since the founding of the United States, there has been a constitution,

which includes amendments to the constitution.

The very first amendment stipulates

that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech

or establishing a national religion.

This is a shining provision in the U.S. Constitution.

So, in the more than 200 years since the United States was established,

it has always had a certain institutional confidence, no matter what opponent it faced.

This institutional confidence lies in

the fact that no matter how you try to control,

you actually cannot pose a real competition and threat to the U.S. social system in a strong free speech environment.

Take the United States' past with the Soviet Union, for example.

The Soviet Union had a powerful state propaganda machine, but the U.S. was not afraid.

Because such propaganda institutions and machines

had no competitiveness in a free speech market like the U.S.

Even within the U.S. social system,

there are supporters of Mao Zedong, the Maoists.

They publish books, and the U.S. doesn't care.

Because in a free speech market,

it includes speech that opposes the U.S. social system,

even including manipulative speech by foreign governments.

Because all of the U.S.'s past institutional confidence comes from

the idea that even with such content, promoting it in the U.S.

cannot pose a real threat to the U.S. social system.

But the TikTok incident has brought about a significant change.

It's possibly the first time the U.S. has encountered

a competitive entity that could pose a real threat to U.S. society,

that entity being TikTok.

It already has 170 million users in the U.S. today, and possibly more in the future,

even potentially reaching every American smartphone having TikTok installed.

So, if it were to be controlled by the Chinese government,

the U.S. would see it as a tangible threat.

After all, this bill is a preventive measure.

This preventive measure

is like saying I feel threatened or I haven't even realized

the real, evidence-based threat, but I feel threatened

and I need to enact a law.

It's somewhat similar to

the series of legislation passed by the U.S. after 9/11,

which allowed for the inspection or surveillance of citizens' letters.

But the difference is, 9/11 was a real harm to the U.S.,

but this time with TikTok, the U.S. hasn't had solid evidence

and is already pre-emptively legislating.

So, in a way, this

also shows that such an economic system or political system of China,

the enterprises it produces or the model it exports,

starts to pose a real threat to such a social system of the U.S.

This is my most important view on the TikTok incident.

It's not merely a simple legal matter.

Of course, returning to specifics,

if this bill

finally passes the Senate as well,

now some say it's very likely to pass in the Senate,

but we don't know yet

because there are 100 senators,

and these senators

TikTok will also engage many external lobbying groups,

attempting to persuade them

to lobby them not to pass it.

But even if it passes,

the U.S. president is very likely to sign it

because Biden has already said he would sign it.

Then it really would become a law.

So, after this bill is passed,

according to the provisions of this bill,

it will have 180 days

to allow TikTok to sell its assets,

and then there's 165 days to appeal.

But in my opinion,

the future development of this matter,

if it comes to this point,

TikTok will not sell its assets.

Why?

Because years ago,

the Chinese government already classified so-called algorithms

as part of China's export control items.

Because the Chinese government believes

that the management of big data by TikTok

and the algorithms themselves involve national security

as they are absolutely internationally competitive,

such content will definitely not be sold.

They will not allow TikTok to be sold.

So, TikTok,

even if it wants to sell, it cannot be sold.

So, TikTok only has one way,

which is in the United States

to sue the U.S. Senate and House.

So, if it sues,

does it stand a chance of winning?

Or what clauses of the court must it follow

to file the lawsuit?

In my opinion, there are a few points,

one is what I just mentioned,

the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,

which states that Congress shall not make laws

that limit freedom of speech.

So, the prohibition on TikTok

could possibly violate

the First Amendment.

This lawsuit could last a long time,

possibly even reaching the U.S. Supreme Court.

Secondly, the principle of proportionality,

as I just mentioned,

when Congress is drafting this bill,

actually, there is no concrete information

proving that the Chinese government has used TikTok

to control American public opinion

or even American political operations.

It's all hypothetical.

Just based on a hypothesis, you completely remove an app

used by 170 million people.

Does that comply with the principle of proportionality?

Aren't there other ways?

Like you initially restrict federal employees from using it,

or could you make

the TikTok

data center in the U.S. subject to stronger government regulation

to ensure its isolation from the Chinese government.

Can this be achieved?

If you can do this,

then wouldn't there be no need to ban the app?

Actually, there's a lot of room for discussion here.

In fact,

I think there's quite a bit of room for discussion.

It's about not complying with the principle of proportionality.

The third aspect is equal protection.

So-called equal protection

means TikTok, as a company from China,

if you assume

that every company from China

is controlled by China,

then no Chinese companies can operate in the U.S.

or they would all face some form of discrimination.

Wouldn't this violate equal protection?

According to U.S. constitutional principles,

any production

or business activities conducted in the U.S.

Everyone should be treated equally.

There should be no discrimination.

Then how do you differentiate?

Because theoretically speaking, on TikTok

it's just a public company.

It's just that the Chinese government holds 1% of

this golden voting right.

What about other industries?

Do you also apply this principle to them?

So where exactly is the boundary?

Therefore, I think there's a case to be fought.

Whether we can win it, we don't know,

but there's a case to be fought.

So in my opinion,

this matter, in the future,

TikTok in American society,

its prospects are still filled with uncertainty.

But from my personal point of view,

I think actually the U.S. Congress

does not have sufficient reasons to completely ban TikTok.

From my perspective,

to prevent TikTok

and the Chinese government

from a complete information isolation,

other efforts haven't been made.

From my own point of view,

for instance,

can TikTok

its own data center in the U.S.

be subject to stronger third-party oversight,

to ensure the data center's data

is completely isolated from the Chinese government.

Just like Apple in China,

doing that Cloud in Guizhou thing,

in the U.S. we could do a

Cloud over Las Vegas, right?

This is Las Vegas,

if completely regulated by the U.S. government,

then the independence of the information can be ensured.

So personally, I think

if just for this reason alone,

completely banning TikTok,

the reasons are not as sufficient as many think.

Alright, that's all for today.

Thank you, everyone.

Breaking news: The House of Representatives on Capitol Hill has just passed a bill that could ban TikTok.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that will ban the use of Chinese-owned apps in the U.S.

unless TikTok is sold to an American company within four months.

Before the Texas project,

whether all the data collected by TikTok is shared with the Chinese government according to China's National Intelligence Law

Congressman, we have not received any requests from the Chinese government for any data, nor have we ever provided them with any.

We believe we can overcome the difficulties together; I encourage you

to share your story,

share it with your friends,

share it with your family,

share it with your local representatives,

protect your constitutional rights,

make sure your voice is heard.