4 reactions to US House bill banning TikTok
2. Rand Paul
In an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Uncensored” last Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., acknowledged that “the company that owns TikTok also owns something like TikTok that is censored and the Chinese let that be broadcast throughout China,” while insisting that the Chinese Communist Party does not “control ByteDance.”
Dismissing the allegation that the CCP owns TikTok as “not even true,” Paul told Carlson that “about 60 percent of it’s owned by international investors from all over the world, 20 percent is owned by the two Chinese software engineers that created the app and 20 percent is owned by the employees of TikTok, which 7,000 of them are Americans.” In addition to casting doubts on the narrative behind the bill, Paul suggested that banning the social media platform was the wrong approach.
“I’ve written two books about Chinese Communism and what it does both during the COVID leak and also what it did during Mao’s reign, so I am no fan of Chinese Communism. But at the same time, we can’t sort of like … emulate the Chinese to try to protect our way of life, becoming like the Chinese and banning things,” he said. “If we ban TikTok, we’re simply becoming and acting like the Chinese.”
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After stating that “I object to a lot of” the content on TikTok, Paul expressed support for the principle of “the more information, the better.” He urged critics of TikTok, “If you don’t like it, don’t use it.”
“That’s what happens in a free country, but it happens in an authoritarian country where you’re connected to government if you don’t like something and you shut it down and that’s what’s happening now,” he concluded.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
