Republicans and Democrats supported its ban because of sinophobia. It's a big, successful business in America, there's scaremongering around what data it's collecting or ways it could be used to manipulate people's opinions—ByteDance did not do itself any favours by coming out and telling all its American users to tell their Congresspeople to vote against this, which was spun as a demonstration of that power.

They also support the ban as part of an ongoing backlash against "big tech". Republicans are angry at big tech because they think it's too liberal. Democrats are angry at it for being addictive, abusing monopolistic powers, and other quite legitimate issues. The problem is that neither party is very good at actually dealing with the problem, so they just lash out wildly at whatever comes along that looks vaguely tech. Not realising that in this case, that will give way more power to Meta and Alphabet.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I think the reason it's happening now is because of the growing protest movement against the genocide in Gaza.

All the other US media companies actively sensor pro-Palestine/anti-Israel content and TikTok doesn't. Unacceptable!

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

That’s a bingo.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maybe, but I don't think so. The US govt is infamously slow and inefficient. I've been following this and it's been a drumbeat that's been growing for years, since long before Israel's latest genocidal push began last October.

If there's any particular reason that it's succeeded now, I'd put it more down to the upcoming election.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Here's US Senator Pete Ricketts saying that we need to ban TikTok because pro-Palestine videos "have more reach than the top 10 US news websites combined"

The reason it's succeeded now is because of Gaza. Crediting the election makes no sense, how does this help anyone's election chances?

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

how does this help anyone’s election chances

It doesn't help. It hurts Biden among younger voters. Because he gets the blame for this.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So why are Democrats doing this? This isn't just a Republican thing, it's bipartisan and Biden signed it. Why?

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So why are Democrats doing this?

For all the other reasons already listed?

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

But only for those other reasons and definitely not because of TikTok being a hotbed of pro-Palestine/anti-Isrsel media content. Can't be that, right? It's just a coincidence. 🙄