Congress is learning a hard lesson this Thursday: Don't laugh at teenagers and their scrolling.
Teenagers are often (mistakenly) thought of as a generally politically apathetic demographic. Many of them can't vote, so lawmakers tend to overlook the role of younger Americans in shaping culture and political movements. But as lawmakers consider new legislation that would potentially ban the social media app TikTok, congressional offices are being flooded with calls from teenagers angry at the prospect of losing one of their favorite platforms.
A House Republican aide describes the experience Rolling rock as a “non-stop” barrage of calls and texts this week from “screaming teenagers” demanding lawmakers withdraw the anti-TikTok bill. Some self-proclaimed teenagers and adults have called to say such a law would ruin their lives or jobs or force them to vote against the members of Congress responsible.
“Given the volume of calls, you'd think we were trying to repeal and replace Obamacare again,” observes the GOP congressional representative. Another Republican congressional office confirmed they are getting calls from “a large portion of the teenage population [and] and some adults.”
A Democratic congressman also says Rolling rock that even though he's not even on the House committee leading this charge, “my office gets a ton” of angry phone calls about it: “It's pretty crazy.” A Democratic official said the calls are “basically all we got this morning.”
A Republican official he told Politico that their phones haven't stopped ringing. It's teenagers and old people who say they spend all day on the app and we can't take it away.”
TikTok itself is participating in the attack. The app, which has over 170 million users in the United States alone, has launch a tool to connect users with their congressional offices. “Congress plans full ban on TikTok,” the landing page says. “Speak up now – before your government strips 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free speech.”
“This will hurt millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience,” the page adds.
The proposed bill, titled Protecting Americans from Controlled Apps by Foreign Adversaries, is one of several attempts by Congress in recent years to limit the reach of TikTok — a subsidiary of Chinese company ByteDance — in the United States. Lawmakers have been prompted by concerns that TikTok could be used to conduct surveillance by collecting data on US users for exploitation by the Chinese government, the company claims categorically refuses.
“Starting in July 2022, all new user data in the US is automatically stored in Oracle's Cloud infrastructure in the US, and access is managed exclusively by the TikTok US data security team,” the company said in a statement. data security bulletin. “To ensure that there is no unauthorized access to our systems, such as no backdoors or data leakage, Oracle and a third-party source code inspector will work to ensure that everything is working as intended.”
The new bill, introduced by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) would require TikTok to completely separate from its parent company or face a complete ban from app stores . The bill would also create “a process for the President to designate certain, specifically designated social media applications that are subject to the control of a foreign adversary — under Title 10 — and pose a threat to national security. Designated apps will face a ban from app store availability and web hosting services in the US unless they sever their ties to entities subject to the control of a foreign rival through a divestiture.”
A hearing on the bill is being held Thursday in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Rep. Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Rivalry between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, said in Tuesday's statement that he has a message for TikTok, which is to “break with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users.”
While Gallagher and other lawmakers appear poised to cut off America's access to TikTok, they may have underestimated the reaction of America's teenagers.
As My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way put it, “teenagers scare the living shit out of me,” and the mass of angry teenagers declaring war on lawmakers might just strike fear into their political power in Congress.
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/teens-flood-congress-anti-tiktok-bill-1234983200/