FCC Chair Backs Bill Forcing TikTok Parent To Divest App Or Face U.S. Ban – If Legislation “Makes It To The President’s Desk, He Should Absolutely Sign It”
deadline.comFCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel finds it shocking that U.S. law prevents foreign ownership of old media assets but has nothing to say about new media — including wildly popular TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company.
A bill passed by the House last month that would require parent ByteDance to divest TikTok or see the app banned appears to have stalled in the Senate.
But if it ever “makes it to the President’s desk, he should absolutely sign it.” “We don’t have authority over apps like TikTok,” she told a gathering at the Paley Center in NYC today. “That being said, what strikes me most is that for decades we’ve had policies in the Communications Act that would prevent, for instance, a Chinese national or a Chinese company from owning our nation’s broadcast television stations.
We would say that’s unacceptable, right? I’d be kicked out of my job if I decided otherwise. And yet here we have something that’s arguably one the newer forms of media and there there is zero oversight.
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