The Morning: The TikTok bill passes

Plus, Trump's trial, abortion and Mark Zuckerberg's style.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story April 24, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We're covering TikTok's pro-China tilt — as well as Trump's trial, abortion and Mark Zuckerberg's style. TikToking.  Luke Sharrett for The New York Times A turnabout The debate over TikTok has shifted very quickly. Just a few months ago, it seemed unlikely that the U.S. government would force ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to sell it. The platform is popular, and Congress rarely passes legislation aimed at a single company. Yet a bipartisan TikTok bill — packaged with aid for Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel and Palestinians — is now on its way to becoming law. Late last night, the Senate passed the measure, 79 to 18, three days after the House passed it, 360 to 58. President Biden said he would sign it today. If ByteDance does not sell TikTok within 12 months, it will be banned in the United States. What explains the turnabout? I have asked that question of policymakers and their aides in recent weeks and heard a similar answer from many. Parts of the debate over TikTok — about the overall benefits and drawbacks of social media, for instance — are complicated, and they would not justify the forced sale of a single company, the policymakers say. But at least one problem with TikTok falls into a different category. It has become a leading source of information in this country. About one-third of Americans under 30 regularly get their news from it. TikTok is also owned by a company based in the leading global rival of the United States. And that rival, especially under President Xi Jinping, treats private companies as extensions of the state. "This is a tool that is ultimately within the control of the Chinese government," Christopher Wray, the director of the F.B.I., has told Congress. When you think about the issue in these terms, you realize there may be no other situation in the world that resembles China's control of TikTok. American law has long restricted foreign ownership of television or radio stations, even by companies based in friendly countries. "Limits on foreign ownership have been a part of federal communications policy for more than a century," the legal scholar Zephyr Teachout explained in The Atlantic. The same is true in other countries. India doesn't allow Pakistan to own a leading Indian publication, and vice versa. China, for its part, bars access not only to American publications but also to Facebook, Instagram and other apps. TikTok as propaganda Already, there is evidence that China uses TikTok as a propaganda tool. Posts related to subjects that the Chinese government wants to suppress — like Hong Kong protests and Tibet — are strangely missing from the platform, according to a recent report by two research groups. The same is true about sensitive subjects for Russia and Iran, countries that are increasingly allied with China. Consider this data from the report: Source: Network Contagion Research Institute | Actual hashtags do not include spaces. Black Lives Matter hashtag is #BLM. | By The New York Times The report also found a wealth of hashtags promoting independence for Kashmir, a region of India where the Chinese and Indian militaries have had recent skirmishes. A separate Wall Street Journal analysis, focused on the war in Gaza, found evidence that TikTok was promoting extreme content, especially against Israel. (China has generally sided with Hamas.) Adding to this circumstantial evidence is a lawsuit from a former ByteDance executive who claimed that its Beijing offices included a special unit of Chinese Communist Party members who monitored "how the company advanced core Communist values." Many members of Congress and national security experts find these details unnerving. "You're placing the control of information — like what information America's youth gets — in the hands of America's foremost adversary," Mike Gallagher, a House Republican from Wisconsin, told Jane Coaston of Times Opinion. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat, has called Chinese ownership of TikTok "an unprecedented threat to American security and to our democracy." In response, TikTok denies that China's government influences its algorithm and has called the outside analyses of its content misleading. "Comparing hashtags is an inaccurate reflection of on-platform activity," Alex Haurek, a TikTok spokesman, told me. I find the company's defense too vague to be persuasive. It doesn't offer a logical explanation for the huge gaps by subject matter and boils down to: Trust us. Doing so would be easier if the company were more transparent. Instead, shortly after the publication of the report comparing TikTok and Instagram, TikTok altered the search tool that the analysts had used, making future research harder, as my colleague Sapna Maheshwari reported. The move resembled a classic strategy of authoritarian governments: burying inconvenient information. The coming fight The fight over TikTok won't end even when Biden signs the bill. Chinese officials have signaled that they will not allow ByteDance to sell TikTok, and ByteDance plans to fight the law in court. It will have some American allies, too. On the political left, groups like the A.C.L.U. say that the TikTok bill violates the First Amendment. (You can read the A.C.L.U.'s argument here.) On the right, Jeff Yass, who's both a TikTok investor and a major Republican campaign donor, is leading the fight against the bill. He is also a former board member at the Cato Institute, which has become a prominent TikTok defender. Yass may be the person who convinced Donald Trump to reverse his position and oppose the bill. These opponents hope to use TikTok's popularity among younger Americans to create a backlash in coming weeks. And they may have some success. But they are in a much weaker position than they were a few months ago. As Carl Hulse, The Times's chief Washington correspondent, told me, "The fears that TikTok gives China too much of a way into the U.S. seem to be overriding any political concerns." There is a long history of members of Congress overcoming partisan divisions to address what they see as a national security threat. Even in today's polarized atmosphere, it can still happen. For more Under the proposed law, ByteDance will have to sell TikTok within 270 days. It will probably have a hard time finding a buyer with enough money. Read more about the U.S. push to force a sale of TikTok. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Trump on Trial Donald Trump  Pool photo by Timothy a Clary David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified yesterday that he hatched a plan in 2015 with Trump and Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, to help Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. That effort entailed publishing positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his rivals, including one falsely linking Ted Cruz's father to the J.F.K. assassination. It also meant buying and then burying information about possible scandals. Pecker called Trump "very cautious and very frugal" and "almost a micromanager," which may help prosecutors show that Trump paid hush money and falsified records to hide a sex scandal. The judge didn't rule on whether Trump had violated the gag order that bars him from attacking witnesses and others. But he scolded Trump's lawyer for not offering evidence in Trump's defense, saying, "You're losing all credibility with the court." Trump appeared frustrated. At times he yanked his lapels, frowned and shook his head. On social media, he accused Merchan of taking away his rights. The N.Y.P.D. appears to be using a dump truck to block news photographers from seeing Trump as he enters and exits the courthouse. The late-night hosts discussed the gag order hearing. "Has Trump ever considered paying himself hush money?" Jordan Klepper asked. More on Politics Biden won Pennsylvania's Democratic primary. A sizable share of Republican primary voters cast ballots for Nikki Haley, even though she dropped out. Here are more takeaways. In Florida, Biden criticized the state's six-week abortion ban and urged voters to support a referendum to restore abortion access there. Tennessee's legislature passed a bill to allow teachers to carry concealed handguns on school grounds. The governor is likely to sign it. Israel-Hamas War Israel says it will expand a humanitarian zone along the Gaza coast if it invades Rafah, a southern city where more than a million displaced Palestinians are living. Palestinian officials claim to have found mass graves outside two hospitals in Gaza after the withdrawal of Israeli troops there. The U.N. called for an independent investigation. A class of university students finished training in Gaza a week before the war began. The Times spoke with them to learn how their lives had changed. Campus Protests A student at the "Gaza Solidarity Encampment." Bing Guan for The New York Times At Columbia, pro-Palestinian student protesters agreed to remove some tents and bar discriminatory language. The school delayed police action to disband the protests while talks continue. The university's officials are trying to balance student safety with free speech. Read the inside story of the crisis on campus. Many universities expect protests to disrupt the end of the school year. Columbia will allow students to attend the last week of classes remotely, and the University of Michigan told students to expect demonstrations at graduation ceremonies. More International News In Myanmar. Adam Ferguson for The New York Times Myanmar's military has cut off phone and internet service in areas controlled by rebel groups. Locals play music to pass the time. Residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine, are trying to live as normal despite daily Russian attacks. See life in the city. At least five people died during an attempt to cross the English Channel, including a young girl. They were on an inflatable boat that was overloaded with more than 100 passengers. Germany arrested an E.U. lawmaker's aide on suspicion of spying for China. Horses on the loose galloped through London this morning. One appeared to hit a double-decker bus and smash the windshield. Other Big Stories The Justice Department will pay $139 million to resolve claims by women who said they were abused by the former U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. The Federal Trade Commission banned noncompete clauses, which restrict workers from switching to a rival company in the same industry. Tesla's first-quarter profits fell 55 percent. Sales are down, even as the company lowered the price of its cars to attract buyers. No, officer, he wasn't drinking: A Belgian man suspected of drunken driving was instead diagnosed with auto-brewery syndrome, a rare condition in which the gut makes its own beer. Opinions Administrators allow discrimination against Jewish students that they would never tolerate against other minorities, Bret Stephens argues. Parents of students suspended by Columbia University and Barnard College wrote a letter to the editor to express their outrage. Student protesters can make their point without shutting down campus life, John McWhorter, a Columbia professor, writes. And here is a column by Thomas Edsall on polarization in 2024. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Near the Norris Back Basin at Yellowstone.  Diane Renkin/National Park Service Yellowstone: Wolves were thought to have rebalanced the national park's ecosystem. New research questions that story. Ask Well: Are nasal sprays addictive? Read what to know. Creativity: Artists, including Joan Baez, offer advice on squashing self-doubt and procrastination. Lives Lived: Phyllis Pressman began working at Barneys so she could spend more time with her husband, who had taken over the store from his father. She created Chelsea Passage, the store's home goods bazaar, a pivot point in Barneys' evolution from a discount men's wear store to an elite lifestyle behemoth. She died at 95. SPORTS N.B.A.: Luka Doncic scored 32 points to help the Dallas Mavericks tie their series with the Los Angeles Clippers at 1-1. N.H.L.: The New York Rangers beat the Washington Capitals, 4-3, to take a 2-0 series lead. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Arizona cowboys in 1879. C.S. Fly/Buyenlarge, via Getty Images Cowboy aesthetics are back in fashion, as seen in Beyoncé's release of her album "Cowboy Carter." In his critic's notebook, the Times reporter Guy Trebay tries to explain what exactly cowboy style is. "How do you arrive at any single meaning of 'cowboy' when the stylistic variants run from western to modern to rhinestone to preppy to line-dancing Saturday night buckaroo to Black?" he writes. More on culture Mark Zuckerberg Yonhap/EPA, via Shutterstock Meta-morphosis: Mark Zuckerberg, once known for wearing the same outfit regularly, has had a makeover. A former cameraman for Megan Thee Stallion said he was forced to watch her have sex, and has filed a lawsuit against her for harassment, NBC reports. The celebrity bag designer Nancy Gonzalez was sentenced to 18 months in prison for smuggling handbags made from protected wildlife skins from Colombia. David Beckham is suing the fitness brand F45, which is co-owned by Mark Wahlberg, for an alleged breach of a financial agreement. X introduced a dedicated app for smart TVs. Elon Musk is trying to expand the company's video ambitions, according to The Hollywood Reporter. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Armando Rafael for The New York Times Bake sweet and spicy chicken thighs with hot honey and lime. Build a better grocery budget. Add a sprint to your exercise routine. Play pickleball with a good paddle. Work out with earbuds that won't fall out. GAMES Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was ambulant. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Continue reading the main story Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving The Morning, unsubscribe. 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