 The U.S. government has just passed a bill that pushes forward a potential ban on TikTok. This is as close as it's ever gotten. If TikTok is not sold to a non-Chinese company soon, it will be banned in America. Man, I'll tell you this. This is big news. Let's run the clips. Millions of Americans who use TikTok are watching closely, while Congress fast-tracks a bill that could cut them off from the popular app. After a classified briefing, a House committee voted unanimously to pass the bill. With a rare level of bipartisan support, the bill would remove TikTok from app stores in the U.S. if it is not divested from its Chinese parent company, Bite Dance. TikTok bill consequences if the bill is signed into law, by the way, it still has to go through the Senate. And it's interesting that it got to this point, Andrew, because I thought Shochu did a pretty decent job of defending himself. Yes, Senator, being from Singapore, I didn't think that you guys would still really want to ban TikTok. After all, I am not a Chinese citizen. And I thought I told you that seven million times, sir. It gives Bite Dance 165 days to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner. I'm not gonna lie. The fact that this non-Chinese owner is in the bill, it sounds funny. Does it not? Wait, wait, wait. So just to be clear, can it be like a... It can't be a Hong Kong person then. No. Because Hong Kong is now part of China. Could it be Taiwan? We don't know if that's... If they're gonna count that right. But it can't be a Chinese... Could it be a Chinese American? Yeah, I mean... I don't know what that means. Is it okay if they look Asian? Basically, they were saying like, we don't trust you unless you sell it to an old white man. Right. Or a white guy with glasses. All right, it better be an old white guy or some nerdy white guy. But what if his wife is Chinese? Well, Zuckerberg's wife is Chinese. Right, right, right. If not sold, the app would be illegal to download in the U.S. China has called a potential U.S. ban an act of bullying. And I'm telling you, this is a really big deal right now. It's being debated, Andrew. And interestingly enough, even two politicians that hate each other, Meijery Green and AOC, they both voted against the ban, even though it ended up passing. Meijery Green doesn't want to ban it? Well, because she's against the censorship of free speech. And then AOC, I think she's against the ban too, but like, because she's for the youth. Right. But then all the older people across the aisle, there was basically people on both sides of the aisle disagreeing. And some of the people that were political enemies, they still were agreeing. Right, right. So a lot of political enemies are actually agreeing on this in some way or form, whether they both rejected or both... But Nancy Pelosi is really for the ban. Nancy Pelosi actually has a quote saying, we're not gonna ban TikTok guys. We're just gonna force the sale to a non-Chinese owner. And TikTok's even gonna get better. Tic-Tac-Toe, that's what she said. That's hilarious. Yeah. So basically, yeah, they... I think that the U.S., if I had to say the best case scenario is that the U.S. forces them to sell to another company. I think that's for a cheap price. I think that's what they're hoping. That is completely messed up, right? Right. Because basically, listen guys, I'm not saying there are not some concerns about TikTok. For sure they need to make some changes to the app probably. All that Kia challenge stuff never should have been allowed to thrive. Because basically you're coaching people to do illegal things or damaging things, right? But I do think the fact that America's all about free market economy and they're literally just targeting one Chinese company, that does go to show you that they're against the Chinese. So you are saying it is kind of xenophobic? It is xenophobic. I'm not saying there's not some concerns or that was it that the Project Dallas where they had to move the service to the Oracle service, that absolutely should have taken place. But if the only app you ever banned is a Chinese app, it does show you're the narrative in the country at the moment, right? Yeah. I mean, I thought it was almost to make way and ban TikTok so that you could launch an American-based rival TikTok app and take the market share up. Maybe. I thought that was part of the move. Andrew, here are the reasons that all the politicians list. National security concerns, data privacy, content moderation, influence on youth, competition, political influence, and national identity. Basically, that's a big thing, Andrew, from the people who are against it. They're saying that TikTok is compromising America's national identity. Yeah, it's crazy because all that content that's going viral is like made in America. But I guess they're saying they're accusing the algorithm of boosting certain anti-American content or dangerous... Or divisive identarian content. Right, or dumb content to make American do it. I think the argument that it's TikTok's algorithm is purposely making American kids dumb is wrong. Now, there's privacy concerns. I get that. I actually agree with some of that stuff. But to say that it's making kids dumber is the stupidest thing possible. Like, I think it's so... I was like, dude, American kids are already dumb. They're dumb. Well, because they are into frivolous things. Because America basically is in a stage where it feels like it's already accomplished everything. So there's nowhere for America to go but backwards. YouTube is highly censored, actually, and still some very dumb content goes super viral on there. Of course, Andrew. Some people were saying, I'm glad that TikTok is gonna be banned because it has a lot of misinformation. Other people said TikTok influencers are the absolute worst. That is the lowest barrier to entry platform. And this was from people who are actually influencers from other platforms. Is it true? I'll say this selfishly, Andrew. As a YouTuber, it's true you do kind of hate on the TikTokers. Selfishly speaking. And I want to be clear that we may be biased. But yes, I kind of... Here's the thing. You know when I upload a video, David, on YouTube? I gotta make, like, 10 clicks. I gotta click through, like, ad suitability. Or I gotta put where the ad's gonna fall. Oh, like, is this suitable for children? Blah, blah, blah. You have to declare if it's a brand. Yeah, am I saying any hate speech? I have to click all these things just to upload a single video. You almost have to click all those same buttons just to upload a short. But now on TikTok, it's just, whatever you think it, boom, say it. Some people said it's about business. Andrew, low-key, all the American companies, Meta, Google, et cetera, they're pushing for the ban so they can come in, create a similar product, and get all the money. Because that's, like, billions and billions of dollars a year of revenue that is going back to China right now. Yeah, that's what I thought would happen, to be honest, is that they banned TikTok to make way for an actually full-grown American app. This girl said, truly, of all the things going on in the world right now, this cannot be the most important thing to focus on. Other people are saying, yeah, I wish they would focus this much on universal health care or gun bans. Oh, wait, so you can get assault rifles, but you can't get TikTok in the future. Oh, that's a good comment. Somebody said, what about inflation, housing crisis, stagnation in the salaries of the middle class, AI, unemployment, basically the middle class cannot even afford health care or childcare or education or housing anymore. Yeah. And then now here we are trying to blame everything on TikTok. TikTok didn't create those things. It's really crazy because, like, there is so much fame of focus on TikTok. And obviously, a lot of people do use it. So I guess there's a lot of, like, information, but, like, is it even useful information? Like, would it? Like, I guess what I'm saying is of all the issues, it seems like a lot of attention is being poured into this one just because it's, like, has to do with the youth, it's an app that everybody loves. It's playing in a sinophobia, too. Yeah, it's playing in a final sinophobia. But to get all the politicians together and argue about this all the time, it seems like not the most important thing. We're still a corporatocracy. We're still ran by companies. All these politicians are still kind of corrupt on different levels. You mean, like, taking a bunch of lobbyist money and things like that? But no, TikTok is ruining democracy. Somebody just said this is a clear attempt to silence free speech. The government, U.S. government hates it because it seems like the majority of content on TikTok is more, like, pro-ceased fire, like, more on the Gaza side versus Israel. Yeah, but that's what the youth believes. That's just the voice of the youth. Somebody said, oh, a TikTok ban during election year, hmm, awfully convenient because they're trying to control the flow of information, right? Oh, that's true, man. There is going to be a lot of... I'm sure one side is going to more weaponize TikTok than the other side for themselves. Somebody said, nope. It is true that TikTok is very divisive. It is all CCP and Russian earworms making us hate each other in this country. That's crazy because if you guys study the fourth turning, there's just a fourth turning going on right now where people who got left out of the third turning, they want to, like, have their voices be heard, and that's actually causing the divisiveness. This is actually just, like, a cyclical thing. Now, I'm not saying that TikTok is not emblematic of it, you know, like the video or the content that you see, but it's like TikTok didn't cause the fourth turning. No. No. TikTok is a platform that a lot of people are being heard on, so that in that sense, that's the impact. It's just a platform, but that may be a certain voice is using more than others, but ultimately, it is not the root of the issues, man. Right, like, voices that you can't see in mainstream media may be using it more for sure. These issues were going to exist with or without TikTok. That's so crazy. Somebody said the government is scared how they can't control the narrative of how abysmal of a job they are doing running this country. Somebody just said, land of the free, land of the poor, hungry, disease, and uneducated is more like it. Think about it, guys. TikTok actually teaches us to have empathy. And of course, Andrew, a bunch of young people were in the comments section saying, y'all can try TikTok out of my cold, dead hands. I love TikTok. And someone said, yo, man, y'all got to chill. I got to blast a few more fits off first. I'm getting mad likes on my TikTok. Of course, you know, kids, they love it. It's like it plays into all the high school sort of popularity, cool kid, nerd kid, joc kid, archetype, type of dynamics that we have in America. Other people are just saying, our government is run by a bunch of old white men who cannot edit a PDF to save their life. This is just lobbying money, and that is the only language that people understand. Of course, Andrew, people are talking about Sinophobia. I think that Sinophobia is probably like, it's definitely a pie slice. I don't know if it's the biggest pie slice against TikTok, but it's certainly on the chart. David, let's talk about why they shouldn't ban TikTok. I get that there are some privacy concerns and that how Bite Dance is a Chinese company. I get that. So I believe that. But the whole algorithm thing, I don't believe fully actually. Because they added the STEM tab. Yeah. There's literally a STEM tab for science, technology, engineering, and math. Let me tell you this, Andrew. Nobody clicks on it in America. Everybody is asking, because you can toggle the STEM tab on and off once you go into the settings. So many people just toggle it off. People don't want to see that shit. They don't want to see STEM. They don't want to see educational stuff. Anyways, David, why should they not ban TikTok? What are some reasons? Well, freedom of speech is the biggest one. Actually, interestingly enough, Andrew, Elon and Trump are going with the don't ban it due to freedom of speech angle. Oh, they got to stand on their business. Yeah, that's true. Right, right, right. International relations that could lead to a lot of retaliatory banning back and forth. Economic impact, innovation and competition, cultural exchange. A lot of diverse perspectives will not be heard, right? Because TikTok has the lowest barrier to entry with the in-platform tools. User benefits, like basically the information being exchanged back and forth. Some people learn stuff from TikTok, right? There's all those people holding the signs. TikTok saved my life. This is like a company encouraged sort of movement. Data protection measures. Basically, like TikTok has done, you know, the project, I want to say Project Dallas, but I'm forgetting the name now, Parental Controls Regulation and just the global nature of life. How can basically someone was just like, how can you rewind things now that things are already going in a more diverse global way? Yeah, so here's my thing. I don't think that they need to ban TikTok. I do think that they need to tweak TikTok even more, but they have been making changes. Like they added the stem tab, guys. Like literally, you can look up a bunch of nerdy math and science videos right away. It's on your... Will it work? Do you think the stem tab will work? No, I think they do need to do a better job of filtering for negative content. They have to do a better job of filtering. There is a lot of stuff out there, whether it's the Kia challenges, how to break it. You talk about the lights all chicken and everything. We have all the most advanced AI, right? And you know TikTok has that technology. Why don't you just scan and sift through stuff a little bit better? That's all I would want from TikTok. Honestly, it's like, yo, can you clean up some of the garbage, some of the lowest level garbage? Like, don't even let people get attention for this because we have to understand that whatever we allow people to gain attention for, they will keep doing. That's human nature. They want to be validated. They want friends. They want to belong. They want to feel famous. So if it's to eat Clorox chicken or break into cars and do illegal stuff, you need to cut that quick. Right. I will say this. My basic prediction is that I don't think ByteDance would want to sell to like a Microsoft. I just don't think that they would want to do it. And I don't think they would want to be forced to, but I don't think they would want to give up the U.S. market either. So it'll be really interesting to see how it plays out. I think it's possible that it could get banned, but I feel like it's unlikely to pass the Senate. Does the banning of TikTok inadvertently spark World War Three, David? I hope that. Is this how it begins? We're gonna ban TikTok. And then the Chinese are like, no, no, no, not that fast. But I will say this selfishly. Yeah, sure. Ban it. I'm a YouTuber. I don't know. That's, listen, guys, you have to sometimes put on your like society hat and then, you know, you have your selfish hat. Right. I will live if they ban TikTok. I'm just saying that I don't think they have to. But anyways, guys, let us know what you think in the comments down below. Until next time, we out. Peace.