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Lawmakers introduced a bill in Congress on Tuesday that would require China’s ByteDance to divest TikTok in order to avoid a ban of the video app in the U.S.

Representatives Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., introduced the legislation, dubbed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The bill says TikTok is controlled by a foreign adversary and poses a threat to U.S. national security.

“This is my message to TikTok: break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” said Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, in a press release announcing the bill. Krishnamoorthi is the committee’s ranking member.

Should the bill pass, ByteDance would have about five months to divest TikTok, while web-hosting companies and app stores such as those owned by Apple and Google would be forced to stop supporting the app and others tied to ByteDance.

“This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement. “This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”

The proposed legislation marks the latest action in a multiyear effort in Washington, D.C., to take on TikTok and its alleged connections to the Chinese Communist Party, which TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has denied in Senate hearings.

President Joe Biden signed legislation in 2022 intended to prevent TikTok from being accessed and used on government-owned devices, and other states have enacted similar government-related TikTok app bans.

Before that, Donald Trump, Biden’s predecessor in the White House, claimed that TikTok represented a national security threat because it collects American users’ data, which could then be accessed by the Chinese government. In mid-2020, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States released a ruling that ByteDance needed to divest its U.S. assets within 90 days.

Earlier attempts to ban TikTok in the U.S. appear to have stalled, leaving some states such as Montana to try and impose their own bans. In November, a Montana federal judge blocked the state’s law, saying that Montana failed to show how it would be “constitutionally permissible.” Montana is now appealing the judge’s ruling.

In February, Biden’s reelection campaign debuted an official TikTok account, which Gallagher criticized.

“That’s unacceptable,” Gallagher said in a media interview at the time. “I urge the president’s, you know, Gen Z TikTok adult campaign staffers to reverse course in the interest of national security.”

The Pew Research Center released a survey in December showing that support for a U.S. government ban on TikTok is declining. The survey showed that 38% of U.S. adults support a TikTok ban as of October compared to 50% in March.

WATCH: The Biden campaign joins TikTok, despite ban on app on government phones.

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Tesla accused by NLRB of creating policies to chill workers’ unionizing efforts in Buffalo

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Tesla accused by NLRB of creating policies to chill workers' unionizing efforts in Buffalo

Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X Holdings Corp., speaks at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel,on May 6, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California. 

Apu Gomes | Getty Images

Tesla is being accused of taking steps to keep employees in Buffalo, New York, from unionizing, according to a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board.

On Tuesday, the NLRB’s regional director for Buffalo, Linda Leslie, filed the complaint. In it, she said Tesla “promulgated and maintained,” an acceptable use policy for workplace technology in 2023 that was meant to “discourage its employees from forming, joining, or assisting the Union or engaging in other concerted activities,” after allegations were raised by members of Workers United.

CNBC obtained a copy of the complaint through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The policy restricted Tesla workers from “recording, unauthorized solicitating [sic] or promoting,” and “creating channels and distribution lists,” among other things, the complaint said.

The NLRB also claims the policy had the effect of “interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed” under the National Labor Relations Act, which generally protects workers’ rights to discuss organizing, join a union and collectively negotiate for better pay and working conditions.

The Tesla Buffalo plant was supposed to manufacture solar panels, but has been used more recently to assemble electric vehicle charging equipment, and to house a team of AI software data labelers.

Last month, the Buffalo plant was home to a number of job cuts put in place as part of a broader restructuring at the electric vehicle company. According to a WARN notice filed in the state, Tesla is laying off 285 employees in the state of New York, mostly at the Buffalo factory. The company is eliminating thousands of jobs worldwide after declining EV sales in the first quarter.

Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have clashed with union proponents for years and were found to have engaged in union busting. In 2021, the NLRB decided that Tesla violated labor laws when it fired a union activist, and when Musk wrote on Twitter in 2018: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?”

An administrative court ordered the CEO to remove the post. Tesla challenged the order but its petition for review was denied. The post in question remains on Musk’s X account, where he has 182.7 million listed followers.

Tesla has also faced workers’ rights challenges in Europe. Last year, Swedish service technicians began a strike that continues today, with the labor group allowing for some authorized work to take place at times. The employees in Sweden, where a majority of the workplace is involved in unions, are seeking a collective bargaining agreement with Tesla.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the complaint here:

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Apple apologizes for iPad Pro ad showing hydraulic press destroying guitars, piano

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Apple apologizes for iPad Pro ad showing hydraulic press destroying guitars, piano

Apple CEO Tim Cook waves to journalists after his meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 17, 2024. 

Willy Kurniawan | Reuters

Apple took on Thursday the unusual step of apologizing for a short advertising video promoting the company’s new iPad Pro tablet after the ad was roundly criticized on social media.

“Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad,” Apple marketing VP Tor Myhren told Ad Age, an advertising trade publication. “We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook posted the spot on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday. Apple also posted it to YouTube. It showed a variety of creative tools, including a guitar, piano, and metronome being pressed by a hydraulic crusher — like recent viral TikTok videos — until all the objects were compressed into the company’s new tablet.

Apple has also decided not to run the ad on TV, Ad Age said.

The spot provoked derision, including extensive media coverage, as viewers said it made Apple look out of touch, and many posted that the destruction of the creative tools offended them.

Some Apple critics claimed that the negative reaction to the ad, instead of spreading Apple’s marketing message for free, was a sign the company was running out of goodwill among customers. Apple is a major advertiser and has historically been closely linked with TBWAMedia Arts Lab, its longtime ad agency, although it also does some advertising development internally.

It isn’t the first Apple iPad ad in recent years to annoy some customers. In 2018, some people said they were annoyed by an iPad Pro spot in which a child asks, “What’s a computer?”

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TikTok begins automatically labeling AI-generated content

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TikTok begins automatically labeling AI-generated content

The TikTok logo is pictured outside the company’s U.S. head office in Culver City, California, U.S., September 15, 2020. 

Mike Blake | Reuters

TikTok is starting to automatically label videos and images made with artificial intelligence, the company said on Thursday.

AI-generated content on the app will now be tagged with “Content Credentials,” a digital watermarking technology from the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, TikTok said in a press release.

“Content Credentials attach metadata to content, which we can use to instantly recognize and label [AI-generated content],” TikTok said. “This capability started rolling out today on images and videos, and will be coming to audio-only content soon.”

TikTok already labels content made with its in-app AI effects and requires creators to label any content they produce containing realistic AI. This latest move will expand automatic labeling to AI-generated content uploaded from other platforms.

The update comes as lawmakers and experts warn of the threat AI could pose in the upcoming 2024 election, fearing a rise in deepfakes and misinformation.

TikTok also announced it will join the Content Authenticity Initiative, an Adobe-led group focused on establishing standards to make the digital production of an image, video or audio clip transparent and traceable across the industry.

In February, TikTok was one of 20 leading tech companies that committed to combat AI misinformation in this year’s election cycle. Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon and OpenAI also signed the pact.

TikTok’s future in the U.S. is uncertain after President Joe Biden signed legislation in April that gives parent company ByteDance nine months to sell the app or face a ban in the U.S. TikTok has since sued the U.S. government, arguing the law violates the First Amendment.

WATCH: Investors want to see a sale of TikTok

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