The US House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill giving Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to sell that part of its business
China could use social media app TikTok to influence the 2024 US elections, the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, has told a House of Representatives intelligence committee hearing.
Asked by Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi if China’s ruling Communist party (CCP) would use TikTok to influence the elections, Haines said “we cannot rule out that the CCP would use it”.
Lawmakers have long voiced concerns that the Chinese government could access user data or influence what people see on the app, including pushing content to stoke US political divisions.
You’re gunna turn into dust by the time the government regulates Meta. The only reason they care about TikTok so much is optics and the fact that a foreign company is abusing the system in the same way as the domestic social media companies. The fix isn’t to divest ByteDance, the fix is to pass actual regulation with teeth that applies to domestic and foreign companies alike.