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Comment by lalaland1125 | Hacker News Reader

This is a misleading view of history. It is true that it was included in the foreign aid package, but the TikTok ban was also passed in an isolated bill in an overwhelming bipartisan manner beforehand.

90% of Republicans in the House voted for the TikTok ban alone. 73% of Democrats.

https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202486

It is very clear that it would have passed without that procedural trick, because it already did.

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Correct. I advocated for both these bills. The TikTok ban carried Ukraine.

Now post the lobbying money received by lawmakers, as well as their history of trades of Meta stock.

Top recipients of campaign donations from Meta:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/meta/recipients?id=D0000335...

Congress members invested in Meta:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/meta/members-invested?id=D0...

And? The history of media companies operating in the US to have US citizens owners is likely much longer than you've been alive, just ask Murdoch about is US citizenship.

You're highlighting a completely different problem that's longstanding and happening regardless if we're talking about enemy states. Be nice if we could solve the Musk/Zuck issues, but I don't suspect we will as we worship the altar of money.

> media companies operating in the US to have US citizens owners is likely much longer than you've been alive

You do realise that, should US allies apply this principle themselves, US companies will suffer? Most UK media is foreign owned at this point. As is our water supply, transport and energy

And Elon’s rampant disrespect and general behaviour are inviting that day.

The difference is China is an adversary, not an ally like the UK,and China already bans our social media there.

They don’t actually, the only British ‘social network’ is OnlyFans and it’s allowed in China.

As for the rest, what is the relevance?

US money influences our politics through shadowy think tanks and pushes it to the right. US-owned water utilities take on loans, use them to pay dividends and drive themselves into bankruptcy.

Being a US ally doesn’t buy us better treatment from US billionaires, they are still predatory vultures.

> not an ally like the UK

Let's see how long that lasts.

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