I'm not a lawyer, but there's something that really concerns me about H. R. 7521 - a.k.a. the "Tiktok bill" that I was hoping to get people’s thoughts on: The bill makes it “unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update a foreign adversary controlled application [...] within the [...] borders of the United States”.<p>However, “application” is defined as “a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application”.<p>This part deeply worries me. It is one thing to force Apple or Google Play not to offer a particular app on the app store. But in order to prevent a website from being “distributed” the government would need to create a large piece of technical infrastructure that filters and censors all web traffic coming to the US - akin to the “great firewall of China” or the separate internet that Russia is starting to build.<p>No one seems to be talking about this, but given the strangely eager 50:0 vote on the issue, I’m wondering if this might be the motivation behind it?<p>You can find the full text of the bill here:<p>https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240311/HR%207521%20Updated.pdf
I recall the Patriot Act was supposed to only apply to foreign terrorists.<p>But somehow law enforcement started using it on domestic targets.<p>Look at FISA 702, it again is supposed to target foreigners, but they use it as a way to snoop on Americans.<p>I fear this bill will be used the same way.
Apart from the the possibility of network filters, the whole thing also shows the fundamental issue with centralised and monopolised software respositories, as promoted by Google and Apple.<p>If you can download and install an application from any website (as was the standard approach in 90s and 2000s), such censorship (be it corporate of governmental) would not be possible.
Read page 8 again.<p>There are three conditions (i) (ii) (iii).<p>It clearly prevents foreign adversaries from operating relatively large social media site, no matter how it is implemented.
Potential decisions by the US Supreme Court about regulating speech on the web and the proliferation of AI-generated content are far greater threats to the openness of the web than the TikTok bill.
Your concerns are misplaced. Its not about the technology, but the business model. TikTok is owned by ByteDance and ByteDance owns/stores TikTok's data in China.
> a foreign person<p>Once again ..<p>"It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad<p>It's knowing they're foreign that makes them so mad!"<p>Flanders and Swann