Individual users would not be subject to sanctions for being on TikTok, and Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon would not be covered by the plan unless they had any kind of business with TikTok. “Initiatives are events,” said Pablo Chavez, chief technology officer at Microsoft and Google who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
Create an Order to Correct the Error
Some members of Congress said they would draft new legislation in the coming weeks to deal with legal issues that allowed the courts to block Trump’s decision. The new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, expects his group to vote by the end of the month on undisclosed legislation that would allow the president to ban TikTok and other apps that the US sees as belonging to the Chinese government, his office said.
McCaul’s fellow Republicans, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, are working to build additional support — including Democrats — to pass the special proposal, according to their aides. It will partially restrict dealings between US corporations and social media companies that come from China, Russia, and a few other countries that the US considers enemies. The goal is to make apps like TikTok unviable by preventing them from collecting money from US advertisers or being promoted in app stores.
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia has plans of his own to introduce in the next few weeks, according to his campaign. Fearing that the laws that focus on TikTok will backfire on China, Warner thinks that the new law should allow the president to interfere with various activities related to technology in which foreign enemies have an interest that could harm the security of the United States. The order could apply to several companies targeted by the US government, including Russian antivirus maker Kaspersky and Chinese hardware maker Huawei.
Give an Ultimatum
Back in 2020, Trump also ordered ByteDance and other Chinese-owned companies to leave TikTok. President Biden and the company are still discussing whether this will happen. If Congress gets a new law on the books, it could give Biden the upper hand.
Lawmakers including Rubio and Gallagher want to make it clear in their new legislation that TikTok will be banned unless it sever all ties to China. The US previously forced its Chinese owner to withdraw from the gay dating app Grindr. “I don’t know how the security of our country and the operation of TikTok in this country, as long as it’s owned by ByteDance, can coexist,” Rubio told the TV show. Check with Color this week.
Get Biden to Call for Ban
Biden’s direct move against TikTok could be an imitation of Trump’s plan for 2020 and he wants US data centers, app stores, and network providers to cancel contracts with the app, cutting off users.
They may also try to get other regulators to step up and call on Internet service providers, including cellular networks, to block access to TikTok in the US, something a spokesperson for a major American ISP says their company has never experienced. already. The exact method can be left to individual ISPs.
This could lead to ISPs adopting measures often seen in countries with strict internet censorship. A common technique is to tamper with domain name records, preventing user devices from communicating properly with other servers. They are also used to block access to websites that infringe on copyright and distribute child pornography in many countries.
Networks can also use more aggressive methods to meet public demands, such as scanning unregistered traffic on their systems for suspicious activity or filtering certain IP addresses. But this could accidentally disrupt other traffic, said Alp Toker, director at NetBlocks. “They can stop using this method unless they are forced to do so.”