The Restrict Act would ban anyone from accessing a online service ran by a US adverssary, which would mean any and all apps owned by Tencent. Tik Tok is a very malignant and horrible app that tracks you in so many ways if it is on your phone. So says even CNN. However, this law is so sweeping it even mentions things like "Post Quantum Cryptography" and "Synthetic Biology" Some readings of it could imply that accessing such a service via a VPN would be against this law. However, this act is not intended to go after Joe user trying to find dance or cat videos but is intended to stop such services from bypassing the Restrict act. That said the law does have some concerning provisions, applies far beyond social media and specifies things like games and forums, and does contain both civil and federal criminal penalties. Though it only applies to such things that have over 1 million users over the course of a year. The act specifies that the app would have to in the judgement of the President and certain cabinet secretaries be operated by or from and adversary of the United States of America and have been:
- Used for sabotage,
- "catastrophic effects on the security or resilience of the critical infrastructure or digital economy of the United States" (hacking),
- " interfering in, or altering the result or reported result of a Federal election" ,
- "coercive or criminal activities by a foreign adversary that are designed to undermine democratic processes",
- "otherwise poses an undue or unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the safety of United States persons" .
This law has bipartisan support.
Louis Rossman has a great video on this.
A Bill
To authorize the Secretary of Commerce to review and prohibit certain transactions between persons in the United States and foreign adversaries, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act” or the “RESTRICT Act”.
...
SEC. 3. ADDRESSING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT POSE UNDUE OR UNACCEPTABLE RISK.
(a) In General.—The Secretary, in consultation with the relevant executive department and agency heads, is authorized to and shall take action to identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit, investigate, or otherwise mitigate, including by negotiating, entering into, or imposing, and enforcing any mitigation measure to address any risk arising from any covered transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States that the Secretary determines—
(1) poses an undue or unacceptable risk of—
(A) sabotage or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology products and services in the United States;
(B) catastrophic effects on the security or resilience of the critical infrastructure or digital economy of the United States;
(C) interfering in, or altering the result or reported result of a Federal election, as determined in coordination with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Treasury, and the Federal Election Commission; or
(D) coercive or criminal activities by a foreign adversary that are designed to undermine democratic processes and institutions or steer policy and regulatory decisions in favor of the strategic objectives of a foreign adversary to the detriment of the national security of the United States, as determined in coordination with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Treasury, and the Federal Election Commission; or
(2) otherwise poses an undue or unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the safety of United States persons.
The criminal penalties called for in the restrict act go up to 20 years in prison and a fine of a million dollars. But no you will not go to jail for using a VPN. The clauses about evasion of this laws effect are more about providers of services that would aid in evasion. So ... running a VPN that did this or perhaps a TOR node could.
I don't generally agree with Tucker Carlson about much but he's right on this. I agree Tik Tok is not a good app and of all the apps owned by Tencent it seems to be the most malignant and destructive in its effect. However this law goes WAY beyond Tik Tok. This app goes to tools that allow one American to communicate with another about playing freaking games and whatever else. Utterly harmless apps.
Now a lot of conservative types will think of discord as a places where LGBTQ people talk to eachotehr and they would be dead wrong. All kinds of young people, and not so young people use Discord to discuss and cooperatively play online games.
Tencent also owns game companies and puts the same exact games into the Chinese and US markets. It's not like the games in China all teach calculus they're just games. Tik tok however does more than these. It tracks people, it gets into all the information of your cell phone. Which these days is everything. Discord just doesn't do that.
This law in context
Utah, passed a law that would limit the ability of people age 13 or younger to access social media. Similar more draconian state laws in other states and another fedearl proposal regarding age limits on social media no matter where it was located are being considered. The Texas proposal would ban anyone under 18 from using social media. Some of these proposals do not specify what counts as "social media" i.e. Obviously Twitter and Facebook...but what about say Discord or the chat functions built into online games?
This law is about outright total banning of large online services from outside the US and from countires that are deemed to be adverssaries by the government, specifically by the executive branch. Which in the US means it's only elected member, the president by way of the cabinet. Some are concerned with vesting so much power over our digital lives in one man in a law so broad and so sweeping it even covers
QUOTE
information and communications technology products and services integral to—
(A) artificial intelligence and machine learning;
(B) quantum key distribution;
(C) quantum communications;
(D) quantum computing;
(E) post-quantum cryptography; (lol)
(F) autonomous systems;
(G) advanced robotics;
(H) biotechnology;
(I) synthetic biology; (LMAO)
(J) computational biology; and
(K) e-commerce technology and services, including any electronic techniques for accomplishing business transactions, online retail, internet-enabled logistics, internet-enabled payment technology, and online marketplaces.
UNQUOTE (lols and LMAOS added by me)
Are they trying to pass a law that would apply to Data from Star Trek or something? Is this a law for the United States or a Federation Star Fleet regulation?
NO, they are trying to go after companies owned by Tencent one of the largest companies in the Peoples Republic of China. Tencent owns companies like Discord, Ubisoft, Epicgames and so forth. This is WAY beyond just a law about Tik Tok.
In short if you care about technology you will want to read this bill. This taken with laws seeking to restrict all social media by age will make web 3.0 a far different experience than web 2.0 has been.
Sources
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/restrict-act-tiktok-jail-time-vpn/
Does TikTok Ban Allow for 20 Year Prison Sentence? (newsweek.com)
Text - S.686 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): RESTRICT Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
White House ‘very in favor’ of bill thought to target TikTok | US news | The Guardian
What Companies Does Tencent Own 【In 2023】 - DATAROMA (dataromas.com)
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