DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

The White House threw its support behind a new bipartisan Senate bill on Tuesday that would give the Biden administration the power to ban TikTok in the U.S. The White House issued a statement publicly endorsing the bill while Warner was briefing reporters. Sullivan's statement marks the first time a TikTok bill in Congress has received the explicit backing of the Biden administration, and it catapulted Warner's bill to the top of a growing list of congressional proposals to ban TikTok. As of Tuesday, Warner's legislation did not yet have a companion version in the House. "The RESTRICT Act is more than about TikTok," Warner told reporters "It will give us that comprehensive approach."

The six countries included in the bill are China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, Warner said. "This competition with China around who dominates technology domains, that really is where the nexus of national security lies going forward," Warner said. Warner said the bill is not solely meant to address TikTok, and rather should create a "systemic approach" that prevents the need for one-off actions. "A U.S. ban on TikTok is a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide. We hope that Congress will explore solutions to their national security concerns that won't have the effect of censoring the voices of millions of Americans."

☆ US senators unveil bipartisan bill empowering Biden to ban TikTok and other services
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Washington CNN —A dozen US senators unveiled bipartisan legislation Tuesday expanding President Joe Biden’s legal authority to ban TikTok nationwide, marking the latest in a string of congressional proposals threatening the social media platform’s future in the United States. The legislation, called the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act, does not target TikTok specifically for a ban. In the case of TikTok, lawmakers have said China’s national security laws could force TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, to provide access to TikTok’s US user data. The bill specifically directs the Secretary of Commerce to “identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit, investigate, or otherwise mitigate” national security risks associated with technology linked to those countries. But those have expanded to include makers of surveillance cameras and, more recently, apps and software makers such as TikTok.

☆ TikTok introduces new paywalled 20-minute video feature
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The New Economy Forum is being organized by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. The new feature, called Series, will allow select creators to share longer videos that will be available for purchase behind a paywall. Users have previously only been able to share 15-second, 1-minute, 3-minute or 10-minute videos on TikTok. The new feature will further heat up the competition with platforms like YouTube — which is known for its long-form videos. In August 2021, YouTube introduced YouTube Shorts as a direct alternative to TikTok.

☆ NSA chief worries TikTok could censor videos for 'large population of listeners' as part of Chinese influence operations
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Sean Lyngaas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

TikTok’s collection of data and its control over the algorithm that serves user content are also concerning, Nakasone said. US officials have for years accused TikTok – and its Chinese parent firm ByteDance – of collecting data that could enable surveillance by the Chinese government. A TikTok spokesperson said that the company has been working with the US government to address national security concerns. We will continue to do our part to deliver a comprehensive national security plan for the American people,” Brooke Oberwetter from TikTok said in statement. “I characterize it much more as a loaded gun.”“I would not expect individualized targeting through [TikTok] to do malicious things,” Joyce said.

☆ TikTok's codenamed 'Project Clover' is a push to win over European lawmakers as it faces a critical US ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The visit was part of "Project Clover," which aims to convince European lawmakers that user data is safe. The codename appears to reference Ireland, where TikTok is planning a second data center. TikTok has previously said it wouldn't comply with any demand from China, and has rolled out "Project Clover" in Europe, and "Project Texas" for the US in an attempt to assure politicians. A spokesperson for TikTok told Insider the discussion on Monday was part of TikTok's regular engagement with European policymakers. The name "Project Clover" appears to reference one of the national symbols of Ireland — where it currently has one data center and plans for a second, per a company statement.

☆ New bipartisan Senate TikTok bill will be unveiled Tuesday
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Christina Wilkie | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Pictured here is the TikTok download page on an Apple iPhone on August 7, 2020. WASHINGTON — A highly anticipated bipartisan Senate bill to give the president the authority to respond to threats posed by TikTok and companies like it will be unveiled Tuesday afternoon by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a committee spokeswoman told CNBC. "TikTok is one of the potentials," that could be targeted by the bill, Warner said. Warner's bill comes nearly a week after the House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a Republican-sponsored bill that aims to do much of the same thing. The House legislation passed the GOP-controlled committee 24-16 along party lines, with unanimous GOP support and no Democratic votes.

☆ TikTok a potential target in upcoming US bill to ban some foreign tech - Senator
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) speaks to the media following a classified briefing for U.S. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File PhotoWASHINGTON March 5 (Reuters) - Two U.S. senators plan to introduce legislation this week aimed at letting the government "ban or prohibit" foreign technology products such as Chinese-owned TikTok, Senator Mark Warner said on Sunday. Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said TikTok would be "one of the potentials" for review under the bill. The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee voted on Wednesday to give President Joe Biden the power to ban TikTok, in what would be the most far-reaching U.S. restriction on any social media app. He said he planned to introduce the legislation this week with Republican Senator John Thune.

☆ Senators to launch bill that will help ban or prohibit foreign technology like TikTok
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner, D-Va., said Sunday he is introducing a broad bipartisan bill this week that will outline an approach to banning or prohibiting foreign technology, like the popular video-sharing app TikTok. TikTok is a short-form video platform that is used by more than 100 million Americans. Warner's legislation comes after U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee voted Wednesday to advance a bill that would grant President Joe Biden the authority to ban TikTok. The bill passed the Republican-controlled committee 24-16 along party lines, with unanimous GOP support and no Democratic votes. TikTok is no stranger to challenges from U.S. officials, as former President Donald Trump declared his intention to ban the app by executive action in 2020.

☆ A GOP senator says Republican lawmakers are frustrated with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg because he wants 'everything to be climate and politically correct'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Hill Republicans are increasingly voicing their issues with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Sen. Capito told The Hill that Buttigieg had a "push" for everything "to be climate and politically correct." The Department of Transportation has defended Buttigieg's performance in handling recent crises. Secretary Buttigieg has been a vocal champion of President Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law. "Before, if you got your flight delayed, you weren't like 'oh that damn Elaine Chao,'" a Democratic operative told The Hill, referring to former President Donald Trump's transportation secretary.

☆ It's far harder to cancel a subscription than it is to sign up for one. A bill in Congress wants to change that.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Consumers and advocates are fed up with it being incredibly difficult to cancel subscriptions. Only last year did the Times begin to allow digital subscribers to cancel their subscriptions directly, Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander told Insider. Planet Fitness is up front that its members must cancel at a gym or by mail, even if they can sign up online. Amazon agreed to change how users cancel its Prime membership after European regulators, US consumer groups, and, finally, the FTC stepped in. Then-DC Attorney Karl Racine went after the food delivery service Grubhub for hitting customers with hidden fees and using deceptive marketing about its subscription service.

☆ Republican lawmakers just revived a bill to end the student-loan payment pause and block debt cancellation before Biden's relief plan goes to the Supreme Court
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

GOP lawmakers reintroduced a bill to end the student-loan payment pause and block Biden's broad debt relief. This comes just under two weeks before Biden's student-debt relief plan is headed to the Supreme Court. Bill Cassidy and John Thune reintroduced the Stop Reckless Student Loan Actions Act, which would end the ongoing student-loan payment pause and block President Joe Biden from canceling student debt broadly in connection with a national emergency. This comes just under two weeks before Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt is headed to the Supreme Court. House Republicans also recently suggested ending the student-loan payment pause as a proposal it would support in potential budget cuts, and over half of House GOP lawmakers, and nearly all Senate GOP lawmakers, filed amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court opposing student-loan forgiveness.

Embattled Rep. George Santos grabbed a premier center aisle seat ahead of President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address. Seated beside Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Santos soon discovered that not everyone — including some Republicans — was interested in seeing him. Santos sat just in front of Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee and behind Rep. Trent Kelly of Mississippi. Seats are reserved for senators as a group in the front of the chamber and House members sit behind them. House members can claim preferred spots during the day but they have to camp out there to reserve them for the entirety of the speech.

☆ C-SPAN captured a tense back-and-forth between George Santos and Mitt Romney at the State of the Union
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

George Santos and Mitt Romney had what appeared to be a tense exchange at the State of the Union. Following the speech, Santos tweeted that Romney "will NEVER be PRESIDENT!" C-SPAN cameras captured the tense interaction between Santos — the scandal-plagued Long Island congressman — and Romney, the party's 2012 presidential nominee. And according to CNN, Romney simply told Santos: "You don't belong here." Following the speech, Santos tweeted that Romney "will NEVER be PRESIDENT!"

☆ AI wrote a bill to regulate AI. Now Rep. Ted Lieu wants Congress to pass it.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Kate Santaliz | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Julie-Tsirkin-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON — One way to get Congress to support regulating artificial intelligence is by using it to write a resolution calling for just that. Write a comprehensive congressional resolution generally expressing support for Congress to focus on AI.”The resolution doesn’t specify that it was written using artificial intelligence. And as a member of Congress, I am freaked out by A.I., specifically A.I. Lieu isn’t the first member of Congress to bring artificial intelligence to the House chamber. 34-year-old Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., delivered a speech Wednesday on the House floor written by Chat GPT.

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy should lead the way on crafting a solution to the debt ceiling deadline so the United States can keep paying its bills. But Democratic leaders and President Joe Biden say they will not entertain cuts or other negotiations tied to the debt ceiling. While McConnell has negotiated past deals with Biden, including when he was vice president, McCarthy has little experience negotiating complicated deals with Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., agreed with McConnell that the onus is on McCarthy to move on the debt limit. The Treasury Department says it is using "extraordinary measures" to keep paying the country's bills after it hit the statutory debt ceiling last week.

☆ Top talkers: These 20 lawmakers spoke the most on the House and Senate floors during the 117th Congress, including Rep. Buddy Carter and Sen. Marsha Blackburn
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-26 | by ( Nicole Gaudiano | Oma Seddiq | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Some lawmakers delivered dozens of floor speeches during the 117th Congress, C-SPAN's tracking showed. Most members don't usually hang out on the House or Senate floor to hear their colleagues' speeches. These House members spoke the most on the House floor during the 117th Congress. "It is my duty to use the House Floor as a vehicle to share their views, needs, and successes. That's because the Senate floor is typically where leaders make announcements to their members on legislation and nominations, among other topics.

☆ Here are the 14 Republican senators who may have doomed their bills in the new GOP House by voting for a major spending bill
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Kevin McCarthy even vowed to block House consideration of bills sponsored by GOP senators who voted for it. But a slew of GOP senators voted for it anyway, including 4 who are retiring and 14 who will remain. "Kevin's in a tough spot," Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a former House Republican and an opponent of the omnibus himself, told CNN's Manu Raju. "Statements like that... is the very reason that some Senate Republicans feel they probably should spare them from the burden of having to govern." Additionally, four Republican senators who voted for the bill are retiring, making the threat meaningless to them.

CNN —Top congressional negotiators announced Tuesday evening that an agreement had been reached for a framework that should allow lawmakers to complete a sweeping full-year government funding package. The comments from McCarthy may even add more urgency to the effort to reach a deal before the new Congress convenes. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin warned about the prospects of the government funding fight moving into next year. If a broader bipartisan deal does come together, it would be poised to pass both chambers. The lawmakers are hoping to include the provision in the government spending bill that Congress is scrambling to craft.

CNN —House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy took to Fox News primetime last week and dinged his counterpart across the Capitol: Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. In the new Congress, McConnell will lead a 49-seat Senate minority while McCarthy will have 222 Republican seats in the House. That’s because McCarthy, like many other House Republicans, doesn’t want to deal with the threat of a government shutdown immediately upon entering their new majority. One Republican lawmaker pointed out that McConnell and McCarthy are dealing with different conferences and political dynamics, which explains their sometimes conflicting approaches. “Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are gonna be just fine.”

☆ Republicans seek to sabotage year-end spending bill
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Stephen Collinson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

An omnibus spending bill that would avert the closure of the federal government would be one of the last acts of unified Democratic political control of Washington. Democrats, meanwhile, understand that the government spending bill likely represents their last chance to enact Biden’s ambitious domestic plans until the next presidential election. If lawmakers cannot agree on a deal, they will face the possibility of either passing a short-term spending bill to carry the debate into the new Congress or a longer-term continuing resolution that would extend current spending levels. But in a sign of the consuming nature of the spending showdown, Republicans emerged from the meeting complaining that the two secretaries spent time lobbying for an omnibus spending bill over a continuing resolution. He said that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had asked Blinken and Austin to explain why the new spending bill was so necessary.

☆ Trump's former White House economic adviser says he doesn't understand what his old boss is doing
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Sinéad Baker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Larry Kudlow said former President Donald Trump was damaging his own support levels. He highlighted Trump calling for the "termination" of the Constitution and controversial meetings. "I don't understand what our former boss is doing," Kudlow said, speaking with Trump's former counselor Kellyanne Conway. Kudlow also said that Trump was too focused on claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. "His meddling and insistence that the 2020 election was stolen will deliver more losses," Bolton added.

☆ After final Trump-backed midterm loss, Senate Republicans bemoan weak nominees
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( David Morgan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"You have to have candidates that appeal to the general public," Republican Senator Mike Rounds told reporters. Trump's party succeeded in winning a House majority, but by a smaller margin than it had expected. "Candidates matter, and I think we've lost two or three or four races we didn't have to lose this year," Republican Senator Roy Blunt told reporters. "We just need to be able to be aggressive," said Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis. The former football star had support on the campaign trail from prominent Senate Republicans including Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham and Rick Scott, who chairs the Senate Republican campaign arm.

☆ Why the world’s top chip maker is doubling down on American manufacturing
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

That measure invests more than $200 billion to encourage companies to bring chip production back onto American soil. Raising the debt limit, the bank wrote, will be “necessary but hard to achieve.”For the uninitiated: The “debt ceiling” is simply the federal government’s borrowing limit. Senator John Thune told Bloomberg last week the debt ceiling could be a way to push through budget cuts. Goldman Sachs noted that the political environment next year will have “echoes of 1995 and 2011” — the two most tense standoffs over the debt limit in recent history. (OK, most nights — we believe in a four-day work week around here.)

[1/2] Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a rally to support Republican candidates ahead of midterm elections, in Dayton, Ohio, U.S. November 7, 2022. "Every President and every member of Congress swears to 'defend' the Constitution of the United States," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said on Monday. "Asking Members of Congress to reaffirm their oath of office and uphold the Constitution should not be a heavy lift. Some Republicans condemned the remarks made by Trump on Saturday on his Truth Social online platform but many remained silent or did not condemn him by name. Both Cornyn and Thune, however, stopped short of saying Trump's remarks should disqualify him as a presidential candidate when they were asked that by reporters.

Search resuls for: "Thune"

25 mentions found