Social media platforms with ties to “adversary nations” would be cut off from US-based businesses under the proposed law
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers seeks to ban TikTok and other networks they believe to be a threat to national security. The companies could be barred from having any interaction with American businesses or organizations.
The bill, called the ‘ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act’, was introduced in the Senate on Tuesday by Marco Rubio, a GOP senator from Florida. A companion House bill was sponsored by Republican Representative for Wisconsin Mike Gallagher and Democratic Representative for Illinois Raja Krishnamoorthi.
The draft law specifically identifies TikTok and its owner, ByteDance, as subject to the proposed ban, but would apply to any major social media network with ties to “adversary nations,” including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. The threshold for being blacklisted was set at 10% of the voting stock being owned by an entity in one of these countries.
The sponsors justified the banning of “all transactions” by the risk that foreign governments could use the apps to spy on American citizens and manipulate the flow of information they receive.
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“Allowing [TikTok] to continue to operate in the US would be like allowing the USSR to buy up the New York Times, Washington Post, and major broadcast networks during the Cold War,” Gallagher said.
He and Rubio first announced the upcoming bill in a Washington Post article published last month, in which they lashed out at the administration of President Joe Biden for supposedly failing to act against ‘the Chinese threat’.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order to ByteDance to sell or spin off its US TikTok business. A lengthy court battle and several rounds of bargaining followed. The Biden administration revoked Trump’s threat of sanctions, but kept the pressure on. A deal on how TikTok can operate in the US in a way that Washington deems safe is reportedly in the final stage of negotiations at the moment.
“It is troubling that rather than encouraging the administration to conclude its national security review of TikTok, some members of Congress have decided to push for a politically-motivated ban that will do nothing to advance the national security of the United States,” a TikTok spokesperson said, reacting to the new bill.
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A full ban on TikTok in the US is a “possible but not most likely scenario,” Bank of America analysts said, as quoted by CNBC last week. US-based competitors such as Meta and Google would stand to benefit most from this, they added.
The overthrow of PM Sheikh Hasina in 2024 was funded by USAID and Clinton family money, Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury told RT
The unwillingness of Bangladesh to condemn Russia over the Ukraine conflict was one of the reasons the US wanted to oust Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, former cabinet minister and chief negotiator Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury has said in an interview with RT.
Hasina, who led Bangladesh for 15 years, fled the country in August 2024, following weeks of violent student-led protests which claimed 700 lives, according to some estimates.
Chowdhury, who served as the country’s shipping minister, was at the heart of negotiations between the authorities in Dhaka and demonstrators during the crisis. The country has been led by an interim government since then, which pledged to hold an election in 2026.
Chowdhury told RT in an exclusive interview to be aired on Monday that the uprising was instigated by NGOs linked to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the ...
The fighting in southern Lebanon marks the collapse of a fragile truce – and could redraw the region’s balance of power
On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a series of coordinated strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. According to Israeli sources, the strikes targeted weapons depots, command centers, and communication systems used by militants to coordinate their activities along the border area.
Before the operation began, the IDF issued warnings urging residents of several towns to leave areas that could come under fire. The Israeli military emphasized that its actions were aimed solely at military targets but did not rule out the possibility of expanding the operation if provocations from Hezbollah continued.
West Jerusalem accuses Hezbollah of violating ceasefire terms and attempting to rebuild its military capabilities. Just days earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Hezbollah was taking steps to regroup and ...
A recent report has revealed that Paramount Global, an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate, maintains an internal blacklist of entertainment figures it labels “anti-Semitic,” applying the term to any artist who supports Palestine or denounces Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Variety magazine reported on Tuesday that Paramount’s new CEO, David Ellison, has moved to sever ties with all pro-Palestine or anti-Israel movements.
To that end, the company has dismissed executives critical of Israel and refuses to collaborate with any artist or public figure who views the occupying regime’s actions in Gaza as genocidal.
In a statement released on Friday, Paramount said it “disagreed with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers,” claiming that “silencing individual creative artists does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”
The statement came after Film Workers for Palestine, supported by over 4,000 international ...
