21
votes
It's not just TikTok. ByteDance has a variety of apps that could also be banned.
Link information
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- Title
- ByteDance's web of apps could get tangled up in TikTok ban
- Authors
- Sara Fischer,April Rubin,Maria Curi
- Published
- Apr 23 2024
- Word count
- 523 words
So does the bill ban all apps that are owned by Chinese companies?
I'm really interested to see the final language, but I haven't found it quoted or broken down anywhere. I was seeing early claims that the Senate version was very broad, and probably very difficult to enforce. And I'm not personally up for reading the legalese.
I'm not a lawyer, nor am I from the US. For reference, H.R. 7521 - Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act can be read on congress.gov. What follows is my summarized, simplified, understanding of it.
My tl;dr is this:
social media applications belonging to a company where at least 20% of the stake is held by North Korea, China, Russia, Iran (or people or companies they directly or indirectly hold influence over) fall within the scope of this bill. For such companies, applications which have at least a million active users may be targeted. If the president determines that such an application is a significant threat to national security, the president can inform the public and Congress and about their determination and an acceptable process of how stake of the application can be divested to resolve the situation. If the situation is not resolved within 180 days of the determination, providing the application within the US becomes illegal.
The slightly longer version:
In essence, the bill makes it so that any given company will fall into one of four categories:
The bill makes it illegal to provide within the US applications by companies in the last category. This includes distribution, maintenance, updates, and source code. When I say application here, the bill generally states "a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application".
A company is a "covered company" if it runs an application where users can create accounts to partake in media (view text, images, video, etc.) and where some of that media is user-generated. The only exception is applications with the primary purpose of allowing "users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews". It also needs to have at least a million monthly active users.
A company is "controlled by a foreign adversary" if at least 20% of it's stake is owned by people directly or indirectly under the purview of a foreign adversary country. Specifically, that's North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran (defined in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code).
The president need only inform the public and congress about the decision, including providing some reasoning as to the national security threat, and what the company could divest to resolve the situation.
Finally, ByteDance Ltd., TikTok, and any shenanigan-symbolic-transfer-of-control owner are basically defined to be in the last category, regardless of any other circumstances.
Per wiki:
(There's also a bit about the Weibo domestic subsidiary having a stake from and board member appointed by the government on it, it seems that wouldn't be relevant due to Tiktok not falling under that subsidiary but I'm not a politician. )
Unclear to me if the Chinese investors themselves are sufficient to trigger the law, or if it matters if they're based in China vs abroad. Employees are not limited to domestic employees either. "Indirectly hold influence over" feels broad enough to drive a truck through though. So I'll be interested to see the court cases. I'm also interested if this is the first time websites have been blocked and how precisely that will be done.
My earlier reply was my own simplified rendition of the bill, to avoid the legalese so to speak. The bill is definitely more detailed on the topic. I would assume that the founders, and Chinese investors and employees very likely fall into the category.
I simplified point A to "under the purview of", which I think is a fair description when trying to not go too deep into the details. In either case, there are other simplifications I have done in my earlier descriptions as well. Some of them may be entirely wrong. For instance, I don't know if there's case law or precedent which affects how a law is generally interpreted. That is to say, don't take it as fact as much as my attempt at trying to talk about it in very general terms.
Wasn't trying to criticize your summary, more that I don't know the percentage of those Chinese investors and employees are actually Chinese residents or who fit into that category. Mostly because the wording reads rather vaguely to me. But also not all the employees are Chinese either.
I will be interested to see how it plays out. Capcut doesn't feel like a huge threat to national security to me either.
Don't know much about any of the other apps Bytedance owns. Surprised they had not targeted ones owned and also run through Chinese/Russian servers to be honest ?