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TikTok creators hold signs behind Representative Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the US Capitol in Washington on March 12. Renewed efforts by Congress to force TikTok to sell or face a ban in the US have the backing of the White House, even as President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has started to use the platform to reach younger voters. Photo: Bloomberg
OpinionLetters

Letters | Anti-TikTok bill contravenes American values

  • Readers discuss a US bill that seeks to wrest the popular app from its Chinese parent company, and Hamas’ approach in Gaza
US-China relations
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Letters
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The US House has pushed through a bill forcing ByteDance to divest from TikTok. If ByteDance doesn’t sell the app, the bill proposes to ban TikTok in the United States.

Being owned by a Chinese company doesn’t mean TikTok is associated with the Communist Party. TikTok was first incorporated in California and is headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore.

Although ByteDance is a Chinese company, it is not state-owned. Rather, 60 per cent of the company is owned by global institutional investors, 20 per cent by its Chinese co-founders and 20 per cent by employees around the world. Last year, TikTok’s CEO said three of ByteDance’s five board members were Americans.

With no substantive evidence suggesting TikTok is sharing its data with China’s Communist Party, the bill not only discredits the US as a business-oriented superpower but also could eliminate a free-speech platform generating enormous business opportunities for users, who number over a billion.

US suppression of TikTok appears to be driven by anti-China political agendas, exploiting Sinophobic sentiment for short-term political gain and neglecting evidence-based investigation and the once-cherished concept of the free market. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas even demonstrated low-key racism when TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi testified at a Congressional hearing last year, persistently pressing him on his nationality, his affiliation with the Communist Party and whether he holds dual citizenship, despite Chew repeatedly affirming his Singaporean nationality.

This bill contravenes traditional American values. The suppression of TikTok is just the tip of the iceberg of the demonisation of China, Chinese businesses and Chinese people.

Has the US given up on free trade, market economics and evidence-based judgment? US politicians seem to care more about posturing and performative patriotism. Perhaps they are the ones who have actually been corrupted by social media.

Christophe Feuille, Bordeaux

Hamas’ actions cannot be condoned

It is only hoped that the impasse in Gaza, now ongoing for nearly six months, will come to a rapid end.

One cannot condone the killing and kidnapping of innocent civilians by Hamas, no matter how terribly ordinary Palestinians suffered for decades at the hands of a superior power. Terror only begets more terror. This has been more than evident in the past months as Israel has gone on a rampage with the US whimpering in the background and not doing anything substantial to resolve the issue.

Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jnr have shown the power of patience, moral restraint and civil disobedience in the face of tyranny, and history is replete with examples of oppressing powers ultimately crumbling. The path to the ending of oppression and injustice is not to confront them with violence and terror, as this only plays into the hands of the oppressor.

Sutinder Bindra, Discovery Bay

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