The House of Representatives passed a bill for TikTok to either be sold by the Chinese owner or banned in the United States. 

The vote passed 352 to 65 with a pretty even distribution between Republican and Democratic members. The ban on TikTok is a part of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. This act is being voted on to protect Americans from apps developed or owned by ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese technology company that owns TikTok. 

United States legislators are fearful that the Chinese Communist Party secretly controls the company and is sharing user’s information with the Chinese government. These allegations are backed up by nothing. The other worry is that the app is promoting pro-Palestinian content in the U.S. with the recent Israel-Hamas war. The legislation says that the app is targeting misinformation to U.S. users through the content recommendation algorithm. 

Legislation is blaming the algorithm for doing what it was programmed to do. The app tracks what videos a user likes and how long they watch each video. From there the algorithm recommends more videos like the ones someone has watched and liked.

There are better things to worry about in America right now. We are deciding to worry about a social media app rather than the economy, gun control, healthcare, inflation, human rights, and other problems Americans have actually expressed concern about.