Musk has spoken out against the ban on TikTok
As the final voting day (20th) of the bill on TikTok, a short video application owned by Beat Company, is approaching in the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, Elon Musk, the owner of the social platform "X" (formerly Twitter), publicly issued a document on the 19th opposing the ban on TikTok.
"In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the United States, although such a ban could benefit Platform X," Musk wrote on his "X" account, ""[The ban on TikTok] violates freedom of speech and expression, which is not the values that the United States stands for." ”
And Musk's above remarks won the praise of Chen Weihua, a Chinese journalist and EU bureau chief of China Daily, "Great, Musk dares to tell the truth."
Chen Weihua pointed out that in the United States, where McCarthyism is prevalent today, few people dare to tell the truth. Not to mention Zuckerberg, founder of the social platform "Facebook" and CEO of Meta, who has been pushing for bans behind the scenes to profit his own apps.
Earlier this week, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a national security bill that includes a provision to ban TikTok from use in the U.S. if ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, does not divest TikTok's U.S. operations. The bill gives ByteDance one year to strip off, and the bill is included in a foreign aid package for Israel and Ukraine, which will be passed by a fast-track vote in the House of Representatives on the evening of April 20 local time.
The US media believes that including the bill in the foreign aid plan like "entrainment of private goods" will help it be quickly released after limited debate in the Senate, and US President Biden has also promised that it will be signed into law immediately. Last month, the House of Representatives, with bipartisan support, quickly passed a similar bill, but it was ultimately opposed in the Senate.
Now, the chairman of the Commerce Committee of the Senate of the United States Congress and the governor of Washington State, Maria Cantwell, has publicly stated on the 17th that she will support the legislation after ByteDance gets 1 year (instead of 6 months in the original bill) of the divestiture processing time.
Maria Cantwell, Chairman of the Commerce Committee of the Senate of the United States Congress. Data map from Fox News
"I'm glad that Speaker Johnson and House leadership have taken my recommendation to extend ByteDance's divestment period from six months to one year," Cantwell said, adding, "As I said, extending the divestment period is necessary to ensure that new buyers have enough time to close deals." I support this updated legislation. ”
In response, many media outlets and netizens have expressed concern that if the TikTok ban is signed into law, it will set a precedent because it can be used to target any other social media and messaging app, even if it has nothing to do with China.
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