H.R. 7521 Tik Tok Ban Bill - What's Really Going On Here? | Ep 250

A Breakdown of Bill H.R. 7521 Tik Tok Ban Bill

Points of the bill that I found interesting and how I'd vote if in Congress.

Sources:
HR 7521 Bill: https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr7521/BILLS-118hr7521rfs.pdf
Invention Secrecy Act 1951: https://fas.org/publication/invention_secrecy_2010/
1971 Invention Secrecy List: https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/invention/pscrl.pdf
TikTok’s Value: https://techreport.com/statistics/tiktok-revenue-statistics/
TikTok Users in 2023: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100836/number-of-us-tiktok-users/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What is up you conscious monkeys? Welcome back to another episode of traveling to consciousness, as always on your host clain guitar and in today's podcast. In today's video, because I'm recording this for both video and podcast. That's a whole different topic. I am going to be talking to you guys about HR 75 21. I'm gonna talk about this bill. I'm gonna talk about why Language is so important. I know you guys have been listening to me talking about the war on language, so this is going to highlight why language is so important. We're gonna go through the bill. I'm gonna talk about the main points that stick out to me. I'm gonna make predictions for what might happen or what should we should look for if this passes, and Then I'm gonna give you my opinion on all of this and I'll tell you guys how, if I were in Congress, how I would vote on.

Speaker 1: 0:55

This bill sound like a plan. Let's go Traveling to consciousness, exploring spiritual journeys, to find answers in uncertainty. So, right off the bat, let's just even look at the title, because so many people call this the tick tock ban bill, the tick tock. So, right off the bat, let's just even look at the title, because so many people are calling this the tick tock ban bill, but if we dive into this, we'll see that it's not truly banning tick tock, which is very fascinating. So the title of this bill is protecting Americans from foreign adversaries. So the title of this bill protecting Americans. So the title of this bill, so the short title of this bill protecting Americans from foreign adversary controlled applications act, which is very fascinating, right? So the entire purpose of this bill is to protect Americans that's their intention from foreign adversaries. Let's see, it'll be interesting as we kind of go along with this.

Speaker 1: 2:13

So the very first thing that I want to point out and this comes back to why language is so important is what defines a foreign adversary. Now, I've looked up majority, or what they classify as being foreign adversaries, and right now it's the likes of China, russia, cuba, north Korea, and I believe there was one more that I am missing right now at the top of my head. But where it gets more interesting is how do we define what a foreign adversary is? Well, usually it's a combination of the State Department, the CIA, the Department of Defense, but what happens is is all of these people are Underneath the president. The president selects the heads of these positions as a part of his cabinet, or he appoints them in cases like the CIA. So, first of all, the president is the one who's now going to, is has power over these positions, at least influential power over the people who run these positions of what defines a foreign adversary. And then, on top of that, it says in this bill that the president also then has the action, so they need to be classified as a foreign adversary. One and two is the president wants to be the one, needs to be the one who takes action on these things. So therefore, this entire bill will give power to the executive branch, to the president, to fundamentally ban whatever they desire. They just need to get us to believe that whoever it is that has the, the app or service because that was another big thing that's on the very first page of this is Is that it's an act to protect national security which we'll talk about later of the United States from the threat poised by foreign adversary controlled application, such as tick tock, and any successor application or service, and Any application or service Developed for provided by bite dance LTD or an entity under control of bite dance LTD. So I think that or or service gives them even just a little bit more power. Now, national security is Another ambiguous term, but it does not get defined very well because, if we look back, there was an invention of what was the invention secrecy act of 1951 and there was a list that was released in 1971 of the banned inventions that came out of it.

Speaker 1: 4:38

Now, wouldn't you know one of those banned inventions inventions? One of those banned inventions was solar panels. Solar panels that had an efficiency over 20%. So what does this mean? Right, if you have a solar panel laying out and it's capturing sunlight, it means that the sunlight that hits that solar panel, the panel can only be 20% efficient of capturing that sunlight. So I'll let you guys ask yourself the question of why would a solar panel of over 20% efficiency? Because they have up to 80% efficiency, this was what got banned why would that be a threat to national security? And even more so. Once you're done asking that, quite answering that question, notice how we can just ambiguously define what is in terms of national security.

Speaker 1: 5:35

So another thing as just like an asterisk to flow and point to within this bill, something also to take a note of as we go through this, and I'll get more in depth with this and why this is important, but Tiktok is currently the most powerful social media platform overall. It's more powerful than Tiktok, excuse me, tiktok is more powerful than Instagram and Facebook combined. Tiktok holds about 26% market share, while Facebook and Instagram. Facebook is at 14 and Instagram's at 10%, so there's no doubt that this is the big player in the game. So what that means, though, is is that this law have passed this act within six months. Someone has to buy Tiktok. That's the only option, or they get kicked out. So we'll talk about that again.

Speaker 1: 6:28

We'll talk about that a little bit more as we keep going along with this, but I want to keep going, and I want to read, actually, section 2b at this point. So and I quote before the date on which a prohibition under subsection a, which was the Tiktok applies to a foreign adversary controlled application, the entity that owns or controls such application shall provide, upon request by a user of such application within the land or maritime borders of the United States, to such user all the available data related to the account of such user with respect to such application. So what this essentially means is that, if you request data from Tiktok, whoever, they have to give you all the data that they have on you, which I'm sure is a tremendous amount, which I I'll say this personally I think that's good. But then the next question comes up is how do you enforce all of this right? What is their rules for enforcing?

Speaker 1: 7:28

So, if we go back again into it and go to section 2, subsection D, they talk about the enforcement. So what is the civil penalty? Right, because it's gonna be a civil suit. What is the civil penalty enforced whenever? If they don't do this, if they don't comply right? What they said is that the max civil penalty that could be enforced is $5,000 per person in the USA using the app. So what this means is that if they don't go through selling this, then they could. The Attorney General, who it talks about a little bit later, could prosecute bite dance, could prosecute Tiktok, for up to $5,000 per person in USA using the app.

Speaker 1: 8:10

I did some math and this is where it kind of gets funny, a little interesting as of 2023, there were 102.3 million USA users, what's equates to 511.5 billion dollars. So they could do a max fine of Tiktok or bite dance to the tune of 511.5 billion dollars and, side note, if they win that, you won't see a penny of that. If that, if they, if we go this route, if this route of existence ever occurs, that money's not gonna go to you. Let's be real here now. What they also put in here is for that section to be where they were saying, like if you request data, they say that if someone doesn't give them their data, so like if we ask Tiktok and Tiktok says no, we're not gonna give you all the data we have, the fine per person shall not exceed $500. So this is a maximum of still fifty one point one, five billion dollars, which is a tremendous amount of money. And again, you don't get this dollar, this money that'll go to the government. That's not going to you.

Speaker 1: 9:30

And where it gets even crazier is now if we put into perspective how much ticktocks actually worth. Ticktocks brand is estimated at about sixty six billion dollars. And bite dance, the parent company is valued at two hundred and twenty billion dollars, which again is the 26% of the market share. I'll put that link below to the source. But I find this so fascinating because what this highlights is the max that they could prosecute them for, 511 billion dollars, is twice the amount, almost twice the amount of what the entire company is valued at of 220 billion dollars, effectively bankrupting them, and this is going to be important later, which I'll get to later, but this indicates to me that there's a little bit of a forced sale, which is probably the key in all of this, in my opinion. Again, in my opinion.

Speaker 1: 10:19

I'm delivering news here, but I'm also trying to give my opinion on these things. So, in section two, subsection G, by their definitions and this is what this is also very fascinating that they decided to do this in paragraph B it excludes, and In paragraph B it excludes applications that post Product or business reviews or travel information or travel reviews. So I'm not sure what the angle was with that, but I think that's just a interesting thing to keep in mind. I'm sure there's Something out there. I'm down to hear any theories people, people have, because I'm sure there's some fascinating ones of why they would leave that in there. So, yeah, that that is pretty much the interesting things that I found within this bill. There's a lot more stuff in here about how they go through prosecution, but I don't really think there's too much more that I had read and again I'll put the links to this bill in the description below that I truly thought were so much worthy of noting in regards to this bill.

Speaker 1: 11:24

With all of that being said, let me jump into some of my predictions of what I think this means and what it means going forward. The very first thing is power. The government wants more power Surprise, and the way they're going to do that is take this and give essentially the presidency and his cabinet the power to ban and block any sort of Website or service remember, any app or service. It's not just applications, but also or service that they don't want. They find a way to deem it as a foreign adversary and then they can just go after that company, which I don't think is good. I don't think it's a good idea that we put all that power into one person, one body of legislation. We've checked some balances for a reason. The other thing part of my predictions I guess that wasn't a prediction, that's actually just what's going to happen but a part of my prediction is in this bill.

Speaker 1: 12:21

It talks about how they'll have 180 days to sell TikTok slash by dance to somebody. But how many people? Not too many people have 66 billion dollars laying around, which means it's going to have to be a conglomerate of people that come and buy this thing, and what that tells me is that there are going to be the likes of BlackRock, state Street and Vanguard who are going to want to buy more of this app. They're going to buy a bigger chunks and giving them our data is not a good idea, for reasons that we'll talk about in a further, a future podcast, because they own so much. Well, we'll talk about that in a future podcast. Let me go down that rabbit hole.

Speaker 1: 13:06

But also, what this means is, by having this forced sale within 180 days, is their backs up against a wall, so they have to make the sale in 180 days, which gives power to the buyer. So if this is valued at 66 billion dollars, the buyer because there are not many people who can afford a $66 billion company the buyer will have leverage, so much leverage. They know they have 180 day ticking window. So they're not I bet they don't even sell it. So this would go into my prediction. I bet they don't even sell it for $66 billion, but they get away. I'll be interested if they get half that for the price of this.

Speaker 1: 13:43

So, again, this would be six months after they put this into a law effectively. So whoever ends up buying TikTok is going to get a huge deal on it and they're going to get all the data that they collected, which is also some of the most valuable stuff. And on top of that, that's probably why they put in the clause about if somebody within the United States asked for your date, their data, you have to give it to them Because I guarantee you, whoever buys this will be a non foreign adversary, likely within the United States, and so they can just request it and then they're forced to give it. To the tune of $51 billion is what they could be sued for not giving it to them, which, again, you know, would put a huge dent in any company, of course, even a company that's valued at $220 billion. But if they have to sell their $66 billion puppy of TikTok, what does that drop it down to like 160, 160 billion, then you're gonna let them with a $50 billion. Fine, you're destroying them, you're cutting them in half. So it's be very fascinating.

Speaker 1: 14:48

I'd very much want to pay attention to this. I'd be interested, just from my perspective, like once this pass, if those predictions were to come true. So, like you know, kind of be cool to see what happens there. Yeah, and then, on top of that, if we're going back to predictions again, all assuming this passes, I'd be very interested to see who buys it and then make some links between us and political donations. Let's look at. Let's look at what the who's funding the politicians and let's see who's who buys this, and let's see their links to politicians and the people who made this thing go through.

Speaker 1: 15:23

Now here's where it gets really. Here's where I kind of go astray from this whole thing Is their whole mission with this is to protect us from China. China's so big, so bad. We should be protected from them, and I completely agree with that sentiment at a core level. Well then, how come we're not passing any legislation to prohibit China from buying up all of our farmland Farmer? China is running out of control, buying up us farmland, and yet there's no ban on that, because if they have control of our food source, that'd be pretty bad, wouldn't it? So why are we not doing anything to prevent them from buying more farmland? That should seem like a pretty important act If we truly cared about Chinese influence over Americans. That's the biggest one that I've seen. I think there's a whole bunch of other issues in regards to China, but let's go back to the things that I think are really important is that this is what's taking up all of our attention is this bill, but in reality, I don't think that this is the biggest issue that we have as American citizens. We're worried about inflation, we're worried about the fact that we sent a hundred and twenty billion dollars to Ukraine to fund a proxy war that we initiated by expanding NATO. As Russia keeps saying stop expanding NATO, stop expanding NATO, stop expanding NATO. And so we just kept expanding, and then now they're Finally pushing back. Russia is pushing back against us. We're like oh whoa, whoa, whoa, we're gonna have a war now. So I think that's a better conversation to be having.

Speaker 1: 17:07

I Think immigrant immigration reform now we need to find a way to reform and facilitate legal entry into this country. I think that's just. It seems to me as though that should just be common sense, because we'd be able to bolster more tax revenue From these people coming in and working legally. This would also help us pay off our national debt. We should be making it easier for tourists to come here and visit so again we can bring more money into our country and pay off our national debt, which is hit a new record high, of course, and so the burden in that regards keeps going. And on top of all of this, speaking of the border, how about ISIS and the Mexican cartels running the border? Selling kids into sex? Sex can't even say it, right. Selling kids into sex? Slavery, essentially within America, increasing the whole Problem that we tried so hard to get rid of, that we didn't want slavery in our country anymore. I'm all for that, but apparently the current administration is okay with just letting them come in, letting them to Do heinous things to children in our country. That has to stop.

Speaker 1: 18:24

Again, these are bigger issues than tick tock, and don't get me wrong, I think that the Amount of data and the invasiveness of tick tock should be addressed. And again, I think that it would be a good idea right, where was it To implement something with every company? It shouldn't just be tick tock, but every company. Where Lake section 2b, where it says that everyone who requests a Request their data, so they know what data you guys are taking from them, and I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea because no one reads the terms in agreements, right, am I right? But implementing something that at least prevents and this could be a better bill. It prevents a Bill that prevents the amount of data that certain websites or in apps can actually control or take from the American people. I think that'd be a much better use of our of a bill to push forward Now with all that data. Now, with all this being said, I think the last question that we have to answer is if Clayton was in Congress, clean Qtari congressman, clean Qtari Representative of the 17th district, is in Congress. How does Clayton vote on this bill? Well, I've told you I've kind of lumped in my opinion there with some of the facts it's just gonna give the president more power and I think that goes against the fundamental beliefs that our founding fathers had when putting the Constitution together of separation of powers.

Speaker 1: 20:00

I Think that this is a whole smoke and mirror little game that they're playing here, because if they truly cared about Americans, this would not be their first step. We'd be talking about local regenerative farming. We'd be talking about how can we truly make health care more affordable for Americans. We would be talking about how can we reduce populate pollution. It's funny because I can't believe. I almost said population there because I just posted a video about the vice president, kamala Harris is saying reduced population so I guess it was on my mind but reduced pollution. That's hilarious. But it seems to me that's a whole different conversation. At least I corrected myself, she just went through it. I'm just like, yep, I'm just gonna own it. Different conversation. But it seems to me that if Congress truly cared about Americans this Is kind of a side things we'd be ordering them to sell their farmland to US farmers. We'd be making restrictions on what data could be captured by these companies, by these social media companies, companies, by these social media companies. And again, what I truly believe is that this bill is about is a forced sale of the most powerful social media that currently exists and to find it a new home with people who they truly want the money to go to, as my true, honest opinion of this bill. So, with that being said, I would vote no on this bill.

Speaker 1: 21:35

I believe that if Congress truly wanted to show they cared about American people, we would. We would protect our farmlands from foreign adversaries. That seems like a pretty big national security risk. We protect our military bases from foreign adversaries. Buying land near our, our military bases, that seems like a more important thing to look at. We really cared about the American people, we wouldn't be sending a hundred and billion 20 billion dollars to Ukraine. We'd be using that to rebuild our infrastructure that's crumbling. We'd be using that to help our homeless. We'd be using that to rebuild the American dream.

Speaker 1: 22:11

But I just find it so difficult to believe that that is what Congress truly cares about, especially whenever they have a nonpartisan thing that I don't think any like grassroots really people have ever thought about or really cared that much about. I think it's important to think about the American people. Really, people have ever thought about or really cared that much about. I think it's important to discuss, but there's so many bigger issues that we need to discuss before we get to. Oh, where's our social media data going? With all that being said, I hope you enjoyed this. Smash the like, smash the follow and, as always, I will see all of you in the sixth dimension.