Last week it became clear that a new bill which would force China to sell off TikTok was making its way through the House. TikTok responded by asking users to call their members of congress. That resulted in some interesting calls including users who called up and threated to commit suicide if TikTok was banned and others who threatened to assassinate members of congress. Despite the backlash, the bill was passed out of committee with a vote of 50-0.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has voted 50-0 to approve a bill which would give the Chinese owners of TikTok six months to sell - or the app would be banned for U.S. users. https://t.co/lrmf8vulo6 pic.twitter.com/N7sNiLW5fW

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) March 7, 2024

Politico reports that, as of today, TikTok's effort to direct users toward congress is still ongoing.

TikTok is still using its platform to urge users to call Congress and oppose a bill that would force a sale of the app, or ban it.

TikTok has been sending push alerts in “waves” to users over age 18 across the country ever since last Thursday, urging them to call their lawmakers to “stop a TikTok ban.” The latest campaign was sent to smaller groups of users going out over the past several days and is continuing to go out, Alex Haurek, a TikTok spokesperson, told POLITICO.

I guess we'll see if that has much impact but so far it appears to be limited at best. Meanwhile, the person who might be able to have an impact is Donald Trump. Last week he came out against the idea of a ban on Truth Social. Today he gave an interview which seemed to muddy the waters a bit. 

“Frankly, a lot of people are on TikTok that love it. Young kids on TikTok would go crazy without it. A lot of users,” Trump said, acknowledging the popularity of the social media app. “There’s, you know, a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok, but the thing I don’t like is that, without TikTok you can make Facebook bigger. I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media.”

Asked whether he still considered TikTok a national security threat, Trump said he did, but again pointed a finger at Facebook and other unnamed American companies that he said were also security risks.

ABC News is reporting that Trump held a meeting with Jeff Yass, a big donor who has opposed a TikTok ban, earlier this month.

Yass, who did not respond to a request for comment on Monday, owns a significant stake in in TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reported last year.

"I've supported libertarian and free market principles my entire adult life," Yass told the Journal then. "TikTok is about free speech and innovation, the epitome of libertarian and free market ideals. The idea of banning TikTok is an anathema to everything I believe."

For his part, Trump denied having spoken about TikTok during his meeting with Yass.

“He never mentioned TikTok,” Trump said. “[His wife] did mention school choice.”

But at least so far, Trump's opposition doesn't seem to be having much of an impact.

Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and the majority leader, said on Monday that the House would try to speed the bill to passage under special procedures reserved for noncontroversial legislation, which require a two-thirds majority for passage. The approach reflected the bill’s growing momentum on Capitol Hill during an election year in which members of both political parties are eager to demonstrate a willingness to be tough on China.

“We must ensure the Chinese government cannot weaponize TikTok against American users and our government through data collection and propaganda,” Mr. Scalise said in his weekly preview of legislation to be considered on the House floor.

Trump was right when he tried to ban TikTok the first time. Steve Scalise is right that it makes no sense to allow TikTok to play a major role in American society knowing that US data can be viewed by Chinese engineers and that China could use the app itself to attempt to influence public opinion on issues that matter to Beijing. Americans do have a First Amendment right to participate in public discussion which increasingly take place online, but America's digital public square shouldn't be owned by Chinese communists.

Trump has a point that limiting TikTok will probably strengthen Instagram which is owned by Facebook. Instagram isn't great and its an open question if younger kids especially wouldn't be better off without all of these social media companies. But I still think if it's a choice between a US company and a Chinese company handling all that data, we're better off with the US company.