Consultant Ro Khanna, the California Democrat representing Silicon Valley, laid out his case in opposition to 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, largely from the progressive wing, who voted in opposition to it. He mentioned the main target needs to be on enhancing knowledge privateness legal guidelines relatively than banning a social media platform.
“What’s the precise proof that you simply couldn’t move a knowledge privateness legislation or legislation banning knowledge going to a overseas nation, and get that completed that method?” Mr. Khanna, one of many progressive Democrats, mentioned on ABC’s “This Week.” “The frustration is that now we have not been capable of move these knowledge privateness legal guidelines. These legal guidelines would additionally cowl knowledge brokers that are promoting knowledge to Chinese language firms. This invoice isn’t truly addressing that subject.”
Those that opposed the invoice additionally cited issues about violating People’ proper to free speech and hurting small-business house owners who depend on TikTok for his or her advertising and gross sales.
The laws mandates that TikTok’s mum or dad 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 the USA. Supporters of the measure fear concerning the Chinese language authorities getting access to the info 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 issues raised by TikTok’s critics, Mr. Khanna mentioned 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 private knowledge, probably permitting overseas entities to buy the personal info of thousands and thousands of People. Mr. Khanna has vowed for years to move a brand new legislation that imposes restrictions on tech firms’ skill 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 — mentioned 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, mentioned on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was open to supporting the Home invoice however had not made a closing choice.
“We’ll see how the Senate desires to take this up,” Mr. Cardin mentioned. “However I would really like us to get to the end line and supply the guardrails which are mandatory.”
Senator Invoice Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, partly echoed Mr. Cardin’s sentiments whereas emphasizing the necessity for swift motion in opposition to TikTok.
“I’d prefer to see the ultimate language, however I’m actually predisposed to vote for it,” Mr. Cassidy mentioned on “Meet the Press.” “Anybody who doesn’t suppose that the Chinese language Communist Social gathering want to affect how we predict in our nation simply doesn’t perceive what they do.”
