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The actual bill is here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521

And I think the interesting bit is what is considered a covered company: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521...

The wording could be applied to many companies, including chat apps like Telegram. The only saving grace is that the company has to be controlled by a "foreign adversary", and it seems to explicitly list and target byte dance only.




You say only saving grace like its some sort of loophole. Most of the people who support banning tiktok have always maintained that the legal justification for banning it rests on the fact that it is controlled by a foreign adversary.

That's not a "saving grace", that's the content of the legislation.


Seems fairly written to me.


My issue is that this could be applied very broadly:

> (B) a covered company that—

> (i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and

> (ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of—

> (I) a public notice proposing such determination; and

> (II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture.

---

The above gives the president the ability to shut down many websites out there from operating in the US if they are "controlled by a foreign adversary". Btw, the definition is here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872, which says: "Covered nation.—The term “covered nation” means— (A)the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea; (B)the People’s Republic of China; (C)the Russian Federation; and (D)the Islamic Republic of Iran."


It's less bad than I'd expected. I half expected that the "owned or controlled by a foreign adversary" text wouldn't be there.


This should be the first comment.




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