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It's Friday, March 17th, 2023 from Peach Fish Productions. It's The Gist I'm Mike Pesca.

And a bipartisan group of senators have co-sponsored the Restrict Act.

Oh, I hope this isn't one of those acts where the word restrict makes up the R part of restrict. Let's say the senators were Warner, Thune, Democrat, Republican, Baldwin, Democrat, Fisher, Republican, Mansion, Democrat, Mourin, Mourin, Republican, Bennett, Democrat, Sullivan, Republican, Jill, Democrat, Democrat, Collins, Republican, Heinrich, Democrat, Romney, Republican. Ooh, six and six. So what does the Restrict Act stand for?

The Restricting God, the emergence of security threats that risk, information, and communication technology, Restrict Act. Yeah.

It's the anti-tick-tock bill, and Joe Biden has taken it up. It does target tick-tock. Everyone agrees that tick-tock needs a targeting.

Well, maybe not Charlie Demilio, but I do remember when Donald Trump made a similar proposal, there was some sentiment of, yeah, tick-tock is worrisome, but a lot more. Ooh, that guy's just butt-hurt.

Do people still say butt-hurt? Let's ask tick-tock influencer Ryan Higa.

Butt-hurt people. People who are easily offended and reacting in an overly dramatic fashion, usually starting with the word, wow. I guess they do.

Anyway, let's recall what the argument was in 2020 when Trump floated a ban of tick-tock. Yes, tick-tock was a Chinese company, and sure there were security concerns, but also, remember the tick-tock teens they bought up tickets to an event in Tulsa, and Trump was angered by all the no-shows that resulted.

Tens of thousands of tick-tock teens tricked Trump's Tulsa ticketing. On the young Turks, they pointed to the tick-tock teens as something of a tippin' point.

There were some rumors that people on tick-tock were saying, hey, you guys, this builds information, buy up tickets, free tickets for his show, and then don't show up, Blacks, and it's going to be so funny.

And I'm not sure how much that contributed to it. I think minimally, but that's one of those things that could get under a thin-skinned person like Donald Trump, be like, tick-tock is the reason.

He goes after Twitter and Facebook, and Donald is going after Instagram, maybe he's going after all of them for any small thing they've done that have hurt him in his mind.

This could be just another thing to push them all over the tippin' points.

And maybe it was just the tippin' point as J.R. Jackson there was saying, maybe because Trump proposed it, but also a little bit about why he proposed it, and how he proposed it in a typically haphazard manner that did not survive legal scrutiny.

Maybe that led so many of us to believe that it wasn't a necessary policy.

But I think it might have been, and now there seems to be wide agreement, not just federally, but in state after state that tick-tock is a threat.

The problem is, do you just ban tick-tock an app worth $50 billion? That will create tension, a huge headache.

The easier off-ramp is to force a buyer, not that easy, because as the New York Times reports today, finding a buyer for tick-tock may not be so easy, see?

The Biden administration is pushing tick-tock's Chinese owners to sell the app or face a possible ban, but there are complications for finding a suitor.

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