Maher warns law­mak­ers of TikTok’s pow­er to ‘change people’s minds’

Talk show host Bill Maher raised his con­cerns with TikTok’s abil­i­ty to “change people’s minds” with Reps. Ro Khan­na (D‑CA) and Nan­cy Mace (R‑SC).
The House passed a ban on app stores from host­ing the pop­u­lar short-form video plat­form Tik­Tok after it passed unan­i­mous­ly out of the House Ener­gy and Com­merce Com­mit­tee. How­ev­er, both Khan­na and Mace vot­ed against it. Maher asked them what com­mon ground they shared.
“Well, the com­mon ground is the First Amend­ment and free speech,” Khan­na said. “I mean, it shows how out of touch Con­gress is that of all the issues in the coun­try, the thing we can get done in three days is ban Tik­Tok? That is the issue?”
“It’s a First Amend­ment issue. I think it’s poten­tial­ly a Fifth Amend­ment issue,” Mace agreed. “It’s not the government’s role to ban apps from the App stores or ban web­sites.”
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Maher inter­ject­ed by rais­ing a red flag about TikTok’s algo­rithm, which can like­ly be con­trolled by the Ch …