Elon Musk just dropped a bombshell 💥!
On Friday, the owner of X (you know, formerly Twitter) took to his platform to oppose a proposed U.S. ban on TikTok, saying it would violate freedom of speech 🎙️.
Wait, what?! Isn't TikTok a competitor to X? 🤔
Yep! But Musk believes that banning the app isn't the way to go, even if it might help his own platform grow 📈.
\"TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform,\" Musk posted. \"Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression.\"
So here's the scoop: the U.S. House of Representatives just passed a bill (360 votes to 58) that could force TikTok to split from its parent company ByteDance or get booted out of the U.S. market 🇺🇸🚫. The bill is headed to the Senate next week.
Why all the fuss? Officials are citing national security concerns, alleging that TikTok's ties to ByteDance, headquartered in Beijing, could lead to \"surveillance and censorship\" by the Chinese government 🕵️♂️🌐.
But TikTok isn't taking this lying down. With 170 million users in the U.S. alone (that's a whole lot of dance challenges and funny cat videos! 🐱🎶), the company slammed the bill, saying it would hurt the U.S. economy and undermine free speech.
\"It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill,\" a TikTok spokesperson said.
Beijing has also repeatedly denied the allegations, calling the move a \"suppression\" of Chinese enterprises.
The proposed bill would also give the U.S. president the power to label other apps as national security threats if they're controlled by countries considered hostile.
So, what's next? Will your For You page go dark? Stay tuned! 📺
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
