Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, believes a House bill forcing Chinese Communist Party-controlled ByteDance to divest from TikTok could be tighter, warning against Senate changes broadening its scope.
Kassam, who has previously debunked some of the myths around the TikTok bill targeting the likes of Elon Musk’s X, warned that there are some issues with “loose language” in the bill in comments to Puck News.
“Folks are rightfully concerned that these bills contain loose language that could be used to target other platforms or individuals,” he said.
“It’s unnecessarily muddying the waters on what could otherwise be a clean hit against the Chinese Communist Party and its propaganda interests, just because Biden and the [Department of Justice] said so,” he added.
Kassam expressed concern that “[i]f the Senate bill is any worse or broader than the House bill, there will be even wider-spread disquiet.”
The National Pulse chief does not agree with objections to the House bill raised by the likes of Senator Rand Paul — bankrolled by ByteDance investor Jeffrey Yass — that the CCP has no control over TikTok or that it amounts to nothing more significant than “a few dance videos.”
Concerns around provisions in the bill targeting companies “indirectly” held by a foreign adversary state may have more substance to them, however, with some fearing they could be used to target platforms such as Rumble and Telegram that have been less keen to censor conservatives than Silicon Valley.
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