WASHINGTON — The young voice in the message left for North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was laughing, but the words were eerie.
“Okay, listen, if you ban TikTok, I'm going to find you and shoot you,” one person said, laughing and ignoring the voices of other young people in the background. “I'm going to shoot you, find you, and tear you to pieces.'' Another threatened to kill Tillis and then take his own life.
Tillis' office said it has received about 1,000 calls about TikTok since the House passed a bill this month that would ban the popular app unless its China-based owners sell their shares. TikTok encourages users, many of them young people, to call a representative and also provides a simple link to a phone number. When users opened the app, a pop-up message from the company read, “The government will take away the community you and millions of other Americans love.”
Tillis, who supports the House bill, referred the report to police. “What I didn't like is that it shows that social media platforms have a huge influence on young people,” he said in an interview.
TikTok's massive lobbying effort, while more aggressive than others, is the latest attempt by the tech industry to block new legislation, a battle the industry typically wins. For years, Congress has failed to pass legislation to protect user privacy, protect children from online threats, hold companies more accountable for their content, and put loose guardrails around artificial intelligence.
“I mean, this is almost embarrassing,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.). He is also a former tech executive who supports the TikTok bill and has long lobbied his colleagues to regulate the industry. “We don’t want to maintain a perfect zero batting average when it comes to technology laws.”
Some people see the TikTok bill as the best opportunity right now to regulate the tech industry and set a precedent if it were narrow and focused on just one company. President Joe Biden has said he intends to sign the House bill, which passed overwhelmingly on the floor this month with an unusual 50-0 committee vote, 362-65.
But it has already faced a roadblock in the Senate, which has unanimously agreed on the best approach to prevent China from accessing the personal data of the app's 170 million U.S. users or influencing them through algorithms. There are almost no
There are other factors holding back the Senate's move. The technology industry is broad and falls under the jurisdiction of several different committees. Additionally, ongoing issues are not entirely partisan, making it difficult for lawmakers to agree on priorities and how to craft legislation. Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has so far been reluctant to accept the TikTok bill, for example calling for a hearing first and raising concerns that the Senate might want to rewrite the bill. Suggests.
“We are going through the process,” Cantwell said. “It's important to get it right.”
Warner, meanwhile, argues that the House bill is the best chance to get something done after years of inaction. And he says threatening phone calls from young people are a good example of why the bill is needed. “That makes sense. Do we really want that kind of message to be manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party?”
Some lawmakers are concerned that blocking TikTok could anger the millions of young people who use the app, a key voting group in November's election. But, Warner said, “the discussion has shifted from a complete ban a year ago to a House bill that would force TikTok, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology company ByteDance, to sell its stake in order to continue operating the app.” Stated.
Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged the app's popularity and the source of income for many people in a television interview aired on Sunday. She said the government does not intend to ban TikTok, but instead intends to address its ownership. “We understand its purpose and its usefulness and the enjoyment it brings to a lot of people,” Harris told ABC's “This Week.”
Republicans are divided. Most support the TikTok bill, but others are wary of overregulation and government targeting of specific groups.
“The House's passage of the TikTok ban is more than just a misguided overreach. It is a harsh measure that stifles free expression, tramples constitutional rights, and impedes the economic pursuits of millions of Americans. ” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee hope to persuade their colleagues to support the bill, with information about TikTok and Chinese ownership provided to senators in a closed session. He called on intelligence agencies to declassify the information.
“It is critically important that the American people, and especially TikTok users, understand the national security issues at stake,” the senators said in a joint statement.
Blumenthal and Blackburn have separate bills they've been working on for years aimed at keeping children safe online, but the Senate has yet to vote on them. Efforts to regulate online privacy have stalled, as have laws making tech companies more accountable for the content they publish.
And efforts by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York to quickly pass legislation regulating the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry have yet to bear fruit.
Schumer said little about the TikTok bill or the possibility of introducing it to the Senate.
After the House passed the bill, all he said was, “Once the bill comes out of the House, we will consider it in the Senate.”
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican who has worked with Schumer on artificial intelligence initiatives, said he believes the Senate could ultimately pass the TikTok bill, even if it's a different version. Ta. He said the confidential briefing “convinced the majority of our members” that TikTok's ability to collect data from the app and misinformation its users must be addressed.
“I think there's a clear danger to our country if we don't act,” he said. “It doesn't have to be completed within two weeks, but it does need to be completed.”
Lowndes said he and Schumer continue to hold regular meetings on artificial intelligence and plan to share some of their ideas publicly soon. He said he was optimistic that the Senate would eventually move to regulate the technology industry.
“There will be some areas that we won't go into, but there are also areas where there is very broad agreement,” Lowndes said.
Tillis said senators may need to continue laying the groundwork and educating their colleagues on why some regulations are needed for some time before passing legislation in the next Congress.
“This can’t be in the Wild West,” Tillis said.
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Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.
