(The Economic Collapse Blog)—What happens when millions of TikTok influencers scream in horror all at once? On Wednesday, the worst fears of TikTok addicts were realized when the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would ban the distribution of TikTok in the U.S. if ByteDance does not sell its shares to someone else. If this bill becomes law, it is not certain that there is a U.S. buyer that would be willing to purchase those shares, and it is not certain that the Chinese government would be willing to allow ByteDance to sell those shares.
So the fate of the platform is very much up in the air. 170 million Americans have accounts on TikTok, and 7 million small businesses use the platform. Needless to say, there are vast hordes of young people that are extremely upset about what Congress is trying to do, and lots of them will be voting in November.
It was apparent that this bill had a tremendous amount of support, but I was surprised that so many lawmakers from both parties ended up voting for it…
The House on Wednesday passed legislation that could ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell its stake in the massively popular social media platform.
The vote was 352 in favor and 65 opposed, underscoring its broad bipartisan support, with 197 Republicans and 155 Democrats voting to approve it. Fifteen Republicans and 50 Democrats voted against the bill. One Democrat voted “present.”
If you have not read the bill yet, you can find it right here. Prior to the vote, TikTok users absolutely flooded Congress with phone calls, but that didn’t work. So now countless TikTok influencers are completely freaking out because the future of their favorite platform is very much in doubt…
Describing herself as a ‘panicked influencer’ in a video with almost 250K likes, one creator said: ‘We might have to part our ways and say farewell tomorrow because what the actual freak?’
Others noted the rare efficiency that Congress showed in passing the legislation, with one TikTok user saying it stands out compared to the ‘months and months to even get aid to people when there’s a hurricane.’
‘Somehow the gremlins in Congress just really got together and finally agreed on something.’
Another prominent influencer boldly proclaimed that “THIS is going to be the reason why I hate the federal government”…
‘When I’m old an miserable and telling my grandkids about all the reasons why I hate the world, THIS is going to be the reason why I hate the federal government,’ another influencer fumed.
According to CNN, if this bill actually becomes law TikTok will disappear from app stores in the U.S. if ByteDance chooses not to divest…
If enacted, the bill would give TikTok roughly five months to separate from ByteDance, or else app stores in the United States would be prohibited from hosting the app on their platforms.
App stores that violate the legislation could be fined based on the number of users of a banned app. The bill establishes fines of $5,000 per user of a banned app. So, in the case of TikTok, Apple and Google could potentially be on the hook for up to $850 billion in fines each.
It’s unclear if ByteDance would agree to sell or spin-off TikTok. If it did, the company could struggle to find an American buyer willing to shell out, despite the app’s popularity.
TikTok is worth an estimated $100 billion, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. And many major US tech companies already face fierce regulatory scrutiny that could prevent them from making such a major acquisition.
But of course even if TikTok was banned from app stores that would definitely not kill the platform.
The 170 million users that have already downloaded the app would still be able to use it, and new users would likely be able to download it using a VPN…
If TikTok were banned in the U.S., the hundred million plus users who have already downloaded the app would still likely be able to access it. New users would also potentially be able to download it using a virtual private network, or VPN.
Even with the app’s removal from app stores and experts expect that TikTok’s resourceful U.S. fans would still find ways to continue using it.
And at this point it is very unclear whether this bill will be able to get through the U.S. Senate…
The TikTok’s bill in the Senate is uncertain, as the Senate is unlikely to pass the bill as is.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said, “I think it’s more than likely that we will take up their bill and amend it and say we’ve come up with some areas where we think it needs improvement. My concern is that if you try to deal with this by name, you’re playing a game of Whack a Mole, because what’s TikTok today, next week it’s TokTik or TicTak or whatever.”
“We do things slowly over here, and this takes time,” he added.
Indeed, the Senate’s 60-vote threshold requires consensus to pass legislation.
Joe Biden has said that he will sign the bill if it eventually gets through the Senate.
But would he really want to alienate millions of young voters just before the presidential election in November?
Donald Trump seems to realize what will be better for his political future, and so he has come out against banning TikTok…
Former President Donald Trump came out against the app’s ban.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!” the 45th president said.
I think that Trump makes a legitimate point.
Without a doubt, TikTok is doing a tremendous amount of damage.
For a long time, TikTok has been promoting very harmful content. And for a long time, TikTok has been suppressing content that many of us would consider to be good.
TikTok clearly has an agenda, and they are using their power to shape how our young people think. But of course the exact same things could be said about other social media platforms.
It could be argued that Facebook has had a far greater impact on our culture than TikTok has, but nobody is talking about banning Facebook. Collectively, the major social media companies are transforming our culture in ways that we have never seen before.
Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. According to a brand new Gallup survey that was just released, 22.3 percent of all Gen Zers now identify as LGBTQ+…
More than one in five Gen Z adults identified as LGBTQ+ in 2023, having more than doubled over less than a decade.
Of the 22.3 percent of Gen Zers identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer, more than 15 percent identified as bisexual, according to polling results from Gallup.
Pollsters reported that, overall, each younger generation is about twice as likely as the last to identify as LGBTQ+. Compared to the rate of Gen Z adults, far fewer millennials – one in 10 – say they belong to the LGBTQ+ community.
In the entire history of our country, we have never seen a shift of this magnitude.
At this point, nearly 30 percent of Gen Z women now identify as LGBTQ+…
“Almost 30% of Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ+, most as bisexual,” Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor at Gallup, told NBC News. “That’s where a lot of the growth seems to be happening.”
This is the first year Gallup has laid out its annual LGBTQ identification report in a way that breaks down each generation by gender. Looking at all generations, 8.5% of women and 4.7% of men identified as LGBTQ, the survey found.
If you ban TikTok, that is barely going to do anything to stop the cultural tsunami that we are witnessing.
For many of our politicians, the reason why TikTok is such a big deal is because it is controlled by China.
This just shows how much things have changed.
For many years, I have been warning my readers that China is our enemy. A decade ago, most people thought that was absurd. Over and over again I would be told that “China is our friend” and that a war with the Chinese would never happen.
But now most of our politicians clearly believe that China is our enemy. If they considered China to be a friend, there is no way that they would be trying to ban TikTok.
Relations between the United States and China are rapidly deteriorating, and it won’t be too long before they reach a breaking point.
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
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