Free speech in AmeriKKKa is looking good! Americans should only rely on true, red-blooded, patriotic, and megacorporations like Microsoft and Google with their data!
Another bill that was added on was an Israel aid bill that sends Israel and the IDF a further 26.3 billion dollars.
Surreal. This while Columbia University students protesting genocide are facing threat of the national guard being brought in, while students at University of Austin Texas are dealing with violent cops just for peacefully demonstrating.
They think that getting rid of TikTok will make all the protests disappear.
Let’s not forget this push and this particular bill (though amended since) predates the October 7th rebellion against the zionists and all that has happened since.
It’s not about crushing these particular protests (though their existence has lent impetus to crushing all avenues of media they don’t control), it’s about preventing the next ones. It’s about continuing to have control of the narrative. And much more importantly than that is it’s about profit for American capitalists. They can’t invest in tik-tok, they can’t profit off it, they don’t own it. And lastly it’s about global control. CIA tells their “former” officers in Facebook or Twitter or any other American company to prop up a color revolution in Mongolia or wherever? They do so with glee and give them data on anyone trying to interfere. CIA tries to tell tik-tok’s global company to do the same? They’ll refuse to honor it, say they’ll comply only with US law with regards to activities in the US.
It’s so obvious that this was expedited because Israel asked them to. I see people on Reddit and Twitter still acting like this is a good thing and I’m not sure how many of them are just stupid and how many of them are bad actors. Anyone talking about TikTok only being banned because it’s “Chinese Spyware” is a fool.
An Israel funding bill was one of the other bills shoved into this one.
Israel is going to get an additional 26.3 billion dollars in aid because of this passing.
Obviously you haven’t considered that the ban is a wonderful thing because China Bad. Therefore any other argument is moot.
I have actually seen a few people saying that only American social media companies should be allowed to operate in the US. Yet somehow China is the dystopia.
The House packaged the TikTok bill — which upped the timeline for divestment from the six months allowed in the earlier version — with foreign aid to US allies, which effectively forced the Senate to consider the measures together.
This is so weird
It’s very common to shove several unpopular bills into one that is more popular or has better PR.
Let’s Congress sneakily avoid PR disasters while getting their way.
it’s so ridiculous how that’s even possible; baffling how anyone can think this country is a democracy
It’s super common like ComradeSalad said, but it works and it makes for super easy PR messaging too. Add some unpopular bill into a totally unrelated one. Oh you want to vote against the Ukraine war? Well, we put it in the same bill as a package for supplies for US military troops, so if you vote against it you will be comitting political suicide.
“Senator Pumpanddump voted against the America Loves Our Troops Act. Does this mean he hates our troops, you decide!”
The practice should be illegal, but so should half the things the US government does.
I do not look forward to the precedent this sets as censorship and surveillance will start ramping up. This will likely lead to bans of free and open source tools, encryption, etc., especially if they originate from “enemy” countries or are used to protest against Israel and other Western imperialist projects, in the future.
Hopefully I can start some data hoarding soon.
Way to win young votes, lol.
Democrats aren’t trying to win. They’re doing what their ruling class constituents want and paving the lane for the Republicans to drive over.
Every liberal voter will justify this by saying the youth doesn’t vote, and that it’s their fault as a result. Why the youth never votes is lost on them (same with the ban not being up for vote)
