The UK’s Online Safety Bill, which aims to regulate the internet, has been revised to remove a controversial but critical measure.
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Days after Congress approved a bipartisan spending bill that banned TikTok from government tools, lawmakers and lawyers said they wanted to regulate more social media companies in the New Year.
TikTok, a video sharing app owned by Chinese company ByteDance, attracts more than 1 billion users every month. Lawmaker and FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed concern that TikTok’s ownership structure could leave US user data vulnerable, as companies based in China may be required by law to hand over user information.
TikTok has repeatedly said that its US user data is not based in China, although such assurances are unlikely to allay concerns.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., compared TikTok to “digital fentanyl” on Sunday, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he thinks the ban on the app should be expanded nationally.
“It’s very addictive and destructive,” he said. “We’re seeing troubling data about the corrosive impact of continued social media use, especially on young people and women in America.”
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said on Sunday that since social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter and YouTube operate using the same algorithm, increasing regulators should push for more transparency about how they work as a first step.
Haugen said he thinks most people don’t realize how far the U.S. is when it comes to social media regulation.
“It’s like we’re back in 1965, we don’t have seat belt laws yet,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Congress failed to pass many of the most aggressive bills targeting the technology in 2022, including antitrust laws that require app stores developed by Apple and Google to give developers more payment options, and measures that mandate new fences to protect children online. Congress made more progress this year than ever toward a compromise bill on national privacy standards, but there are only a handful of state laws that define how consumer data is protected.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said she has bipartisan support for many of the bills, and many have already made it to the Senate floor. But he said the tech lobby is so strong that a bill with “strong bipartisan support” could collapse “within 24 hours.”
Klobuchar said Sunday that things will only change with the social media company when America decides enough is enough.
“We’re behind,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It’s time for 2023, it’s our resolution, that we will finally pass one of these bills.”
– CNBC’s Lauren Feiner contributed to this report