Ban TikTok

TikTok once again finds itself in a precarious position. This time, it comes in the form of legislation that would ban the popular social media platform if it doesn't break ties with ByteDance, its Beijing-based parent company. On Thursday, a House panel unanimously approved a bipartisan bill that would require the Chinese firm to divest TikTok and other applications it owns within six months of the bill's enactment in order to avoid a nation-wide ban. The legislation also creates a process that lets the executive branch…

When Spencre McGowan, an herbalist and a cookbook writer in Butte, Montana, started posting on TikTok to help pull herself out of a “depressive funk” in 2021, she could have never imagined her quick, rustic videos of comforting food recipes and outdoor wanderings would net her an audience of 110,000 committed followers in less than two years. TikTok, seemingly overnight, became her primary platform for promoting her books and connecting with people that came to her for a sense of friendly familiarity—short, stress-free…