Comment by nickelpro
15 hours ago
Facebook / Meta are not controlled by a foreign adversary as designated by the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act". Thus they cannot become subject to the distribution restrictions designated by that law.
The core factor in the law is control by a foreign adversary, it's not a law that outlaws data collection.
I know, I was pointing out it's not really about data collection because we allow manipulative practices with our own people. We are our own worst enemy. Meaning government and corporations want that power over our people. They are protecting interests that run counter to the will of the people.
I support any ban on social media platforms because control of the public's data belongs in the hands of individuals.
60% of Bytedance is owned by outside of China investors. I fail to see how that makes it controlled by China.
The law does not care about who financially owns the company, only about designations of control made by the president (along with a 30 day notice).
The law actually skips this step for ByteDance / TikTok and directly adds them to the list of "Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications" along with the enactment of the law.
The argument is that China has a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_share in Bytedance; that despite only owning (on paper) 1% or whatever, they still have effective control over the whole company, if they so desire.
(I don't know if that's true, but it strikes me as plausible)
edit: you can make an analogy to e.g. Meta - Zuckerberg doesn't strictly own a majority, but he does have very strong control because of the particular corporate structure.