The Control of Bill 686

Throughout the past couple of months, there have been numerous discussions involving regulations within social media platforms. These social media platforms are and have been a somewhat free space for people to share their own thoughts, ideas, and opinions without the expense of the platform itself. This relationship between the social media platform and the user has always had its own twists and turns since social media itself is relatively new. I’ve discussed in prior articles about section 230 which would make social media platforms more reliable for what users do and say on the platform. With this and many other conversations, the government has continued to pave they’re into a more demanding role. What I mean by this is that the government has felt that their presence is needed in order to regulate social media platforms. Senate Bill 686 is exactly what the government needs in order to gain this control over both social media platforms and users. But this bill does more than just that as it can be seen Bill 686 is all about having control.

For social media, this is bill is all a part of the big controversy of the tik tok ban coming to place. There are over 150 million Americans that use tik tok in which Bill 686 biggest impact is that the government will be allowed to stop any online activity that has a group of 1 million people or more. With that, the government would be able to ban all American tik tok users from using the app. This bill would take a toll on the millions of influencers on tik tok that have a large following helping, entertaining, and educating other users. This bill has been viewed as the tik tok ban bill, but tik tok being banned is the least of our worries with this bill. The government being able to shut down and control any online activity with over a million people is unheard of in the past and it is hard to think about what this bill could mean for the future. When I think about this bill, what comes to mind is the thousands of new social media platforms that have this bill over their heads at all times. There will always be the looming thought that any social media platform could be shut down instantly by the government. The concept of the internet and social media being a “free” space to state your thoughts, ideas, and opinions continues to go down the drain as the government could have the ability to stop any large social activity and for what cause? I don’t know all the specific reasons for the government wanting to ban tik tok but I can in fact see a future where the government exploits this bill and starts using the power they have in an illogical sense for their own good rather than the good of the users.