The former executive expressed interest in buying the app to the founder of TikTok’s parent company, according to The Wall Street Journal. China-based ByteDance could be forced to sell TikTok or else lose access to the US market should Congress pass a new bipartisan bill.
Kotick is looking for allies, tossing out the idea to a group including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, per the Journal.
The Republican-controlled House is planning a speedy vote on a new bill that could ban TikTok unless it separates from its Chinese parent company. House leaders plan to bring the bill to a vote on Wednesday in an accelerated process that requires a two-thirds vote to pass, according to Semafor.
That says a lot about how much House Republicans care about this bill, considering that former President Donald Trump posted this on Truth Social after the committee vote to advance it:
If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!
The series of bills Google endorsed would do things like fund investigations of child exploitation and make it easier for victims to request child abuse images to be removed from social media.
So far only Microsoft, Snap, and X have come out in favor of the Kids Online Safety Act. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Fight for the Future say they still have serious concerns about KOSA.
After months of little serious discussion about TikTok on Capitol Hill, the House Energy and Commerce committee just unanimously passed a bill that could effectively ban the app unless it separates from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) pointed to TikTok’s plea to users to contact their representatives about voting against the bill as “a small taste” of how the Chinese Communist Party can weaponize apps. After the vote, TikTok wrote on X that the “government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.”
[House Committee on Energy and Commerce]
JKBX (pronounced “jukebox”) is a new platform that lets music rights holders sell securities based on their royalties.
If you buy shares in a song like Beyoncé’s “Halo,” for example, you’ll get a cut of the distribution fees the rights holder collects. The only problem is that it’s already hard enough for artists themselves to make money from streaming, so even if you invest in a trending song, it could take a while to see a meaningful return.
41 attorneys general sent a letter to Meta’s chief legal officer Tuesday demanding the company invest more in stopping scam account takeovers that threaten users’ privacy and “drain” AG resources.
The problem has gotten significantly worse over the past few years, the AGs said. In New York, Meta account takeover complaints spiked from 73 in 2019 to 783 by the end of 2023.
26 groups including Public Knowledge and the Tech Oversight Project are raising alarms as Congress considers cuts to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s budget. Language in the appropriations bill would “unravel” a recent law that allowed enforcers to raise money from merger filing fees, according to the letter shared exclusively with The Verge. It comes as the DOJ fights Google in two separate cases and is reportedly nearing the end of its probe into Apple.
[www.economicliberties.us]
