 You've probably heard about TikTok at this point. It's one of the most popular social media apps after all, especially amongst the kids. And there's been countless examples of politicians at all levels trying to restrict people's access to the app or to just outright ban the use of it. But there was a new bill that passed the House Commerce Committee yesterday with a 50 to zero vote total bipartisan support that could end up forcing ByteDance, the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok, to sell the platform to a US-based company or to lose access to the US market altogether, which includes banning TikTok from using US-based companies like AWS or Cloudflare for hosting, CDNs, and other internet services. Now, the US is generally the most profitable market for social media companies because the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, makes most of the data collection and monetization that these companies profit hugely from illegal in the European market. TikTok is also banned flat out in India and its algorithm is heavily regulated in China. The app pushes out much more scientific and educational content within China, which means that the US is really one of the only major markets left for the app. Now, according to this bill's authors, this is a bill to protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications, such as TikTok, and any successor application or service or any other application or service developed or provided by ByteDance LTD or an entity under the control of ByteDance LTD. And of course, like any good bill, it's got a nifty little title that Americans can get behind, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Not quite as nifty as the Kids Online Safety Act or the Save the Puppies Act, but this title still gets the job done. Now, this is still just a bill and it's not a law until the Schoolhouse Rock Stuff is done, but this bill is kind of interesting to me because it's an example of the government showing their hand a little bit more than they usually do because with these bills that we've seen over the years with regards to regulating social media in America or AI technology or anything like that, there's usually some kind of scapegoat involved, like, oh, this is a law to protect the children or to stop crime and terrorists or to protect your privacy, but not really. But here, they're basically coming right out and saying, look, we don't like TikTok because we don't control it. And in this case, we is both the United States government and big tech because of course, TikTok is a major competitor to companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, et cetera. And if TikTok did end up selling out to an existing US company, it would likely be one of those companies and they would profit immensely from that acquisition. I mean, they would basically become the social media app and they probably would be for years to come because TikTok users tend to be younger, like younger people already have it on their devices and TikTok might unironically be the best way to target the under 20 years old demographic with advertising and that was actually confirmed in a way by the outcome of TikTok's response to this bill, which was to display this push notification in the TikTok app when people opened it for the first time yesterday, which says, stop a TikTok shutdown. Congress is planning a total ban of TikTok. Speak up now before your government strips 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression. Holy crap, if that's really how many people are using TikTok in the US, then we're doomed. We're doomed and not just because of the fact that it's like a Chinese controlled app, it's just the fact that it's TikTok that they chose to install on their phones and use. This will damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country and deny artists an audience. Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote no. And below this message is a red call now button which would actually call your local representative's offices if you tapped it after entering your zip code. I'm kind of surprised that TikTok didn't just use the device's current location to figure out where to route the call and, you know, to require less input from the user. But anyway, as you probably guessed, lots of people entered their zip code and lots of people tapped that button. Teens from all states were tapping that shit and they clogged up the phone lines across the country. Some offices were receiving upwards of 20 calls per minute. And I can only imagine what kind of skibbity toilet or sussybucket nonsense the average US TikToker would end up talking about once a congressional aide answered their call. This stunt by Bite Dance might honestly be the final straw that gets action taken against them because one of the narratives for banning TikTok that has the most legs to stand on is this idea that it's a kind of cyber warfare tool that China is using against the United States and against its other rivals and not just a spy on its citizens. I mean, obviously it's a very spooky app like the permissions and level of access that it needs on your device is ridiculous, which is why pretty much every sane government at this point has at least banned their employees from having it on their phone. But in addition to all of the spyware, you could also argue that TikTok is being used to influence our culture in a negative way. So in case you didn't know, the Chinese version of TikTok has an algorithm that's geared more towards educational positive content while TikTok everywhere else seems to have an algorithm that promotes divisive, nonsensical, masturbatory content. Now my hypothesis about this is that the TikTok algorithm outside of China is obviously much less restricted. And so it serves this like divisive and horny content outside of China because that's what gets the most engagement. And oftentimes the kind of content that I've seen on TikTok is also on Facebook, Instagram, and other US based social media platforms because well, that kind of content has the same results on pretty much any platform that you put it on. But this notification that TikTok pushed out to its users, which effectively DDoS Congress's phone lines is a much more direct kind of attack than this alleged algorithm manipulation and even the spying that it's doing. Now of course, if TikTok actually did get sold to a US company, that probably wouldn't do much to change the platform. Assuming that the algorithm isn't this super malicious thing that was crafted by the Chinese government and it truly is just showing people whatever they are most likely to engage with. The level of spying that TikTok does is gonna remain the same. The data is just going to end up going to big tech companies first and then get sold for a profit to whoever wants to buy it. And that could include China. Big tech has no issues really with selling people's data to China. And sure, the CPC would have less direct influence over US culture in a way, like they couldn't just directly push an update to the algorithm to serve whatever content they want. But the US's rivals are already still pretty good at influencing culture and the narrative on Western-owned social media apps. So I don't see why China couldn't just spin up a bunch of bots or not even necessarily bots have like a whole warehouse full of people that are just shitposting on TikTok all day to try to overthrow the US government. So the real solution here, if you're worried about TikTok or any other social media app for that matter, influencing you or your loved ones, you have to be the one to take action, right? Like remove that from your life, take the action in your family if your kids are using the apps and you think it's having a negative impact on them or probably is, like even if you don't necessarily think it's having negative impact on them, like it just honestly and all honesty probably is, be the one to remove that from them. And if the US acquires TikTok, the app will continue to be used for spying and abuse just to the gain of big tech in the US government instead of bite dance and the Chinese government. But if you enjoyed this video, like and share it to hack the algorithm. 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