Residents of a Pennsylvania city gathered to mourn and remember four of the five children who died when fire swept through a home child care center.
A funeral service was held Saturday in Erie for 8-year-old La'Myhia Jones, 6-year-old Luther Jones Jr., 4-year-old Ava Jones and 9-month-old Jaydan Augustyniak. All are siblings. The funeral for 2-year-old Dalvin Pacley will be held Monday.
Three of the victims were the children of a volunteer firefighter, Luther Jones. Their mother, Shevona Overton, is also the mother of Jaydan. An adult and two adolescent boys were able to escape. Fire officials suspect Sunday's blaze was accidental and possibly electrical
Erie Bureau of Fire Inspector Mark Polanski helps investigate a fatal fire at 1248 West 11th St. in Erie, Pa, on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019. Authorities say an early morning fire in northwestern Pennsylvania claimed the lives of multiple children and sent another person to the hospital. (Greg WohlfordErie Times-News via AP)
"There are things that happen in this life that take years to understand. There are things that happen in this life that we will never understand," said Mayor Joe Schember. "Why are bright, beautiful children taken away from us in a tragic accident in the middle of the night?"
The most important lesson from such a tragedy, Schember said, "is to really value and treasure the relatives and friends that are still with us." And, he said, "only a strong belief in God can help us humans through a loss like this."
The Rev. Charles Mock of Community Baptist Church drew an ovation as he urged the community that had come together "Don't stop now."
Paul Laughlin, 57, places stuffed animals on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019 outside a home at 1248 West 11th St. in Erie, Pa., where multiple people died in an early-morning fire. (Greg WohlfordErie Times-News via AP)
"Don't stop the kisses, don't stop the hugs, don't stop the warm embraces, don't stop the coming together, don't stop the partnerships that have come out of five children who have gone into heaven," he said.
The Rev. Lamont Higginbottom Sr. of Second Baptist Church said children are born "without the sting of hate in their heart" and their loss "seems to rob the community of speech."
Drawing from the biblical story of Job, he said "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away" ... but "blessed be the name of the Lord."
Erie Bureau of Police Det. Dave Walker, left, and Matthew Regentin, center, a fire investigator with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives, based in Pittsburgh, are shown Monday, Aug. 12, 2019, with a box of evidence taken from the scene of a fatal fire at a home child care center on W. 11th Street in Erie, Pa. Investigators spent several hours at the site, where five children died and at least two others were injured in the fire the day before. (Christopher MilletteErie Times-News via AP)
Relatives of the victims, he said, "only entrusted you with the shell of these kids, because the soul of these kids belongs to Almighty God."
Karina Facchiano, center, is comforted by a friend during a vigil outside a residence, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019, in Erie, Pa. The vigil was in remembrance of five children who died Aug. 11 at a fire at the residence, which served as a daycare facility. One of the children that died was Dalvin Pacley, 2, Facchiano's son. (Jack HanrahanErie Times-News via AP)
NEW DELHI (AP) — The hugely popular Chinese app TikTok may be forced out of the U.S., where a measure to outlaw the video-sharing app has won congressional approval and is on its way to President Biden for his signature.
In India, the app was banned nearly four years ago. Here's what happened:
In June 2020, TikTok users in India bid goodbye to the app, which is operated by Chinese internet firm ByteDance. New Delhi had suddenly banned the popular app, alongside dozens other Chinese apps, following a military clash along the India-China border. Twenty Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed, and ties between the two Asian giants plunged to a new low.
The government cited privacy concerns and said that Chinese apps pose a threat to India’s sovereignty and security.
The move mostly drew widespread support in India, where protesters had been calling for a boycott of Chinese goods since the deadly confrontation in the remote Karakoram mountain border region.
“There was a clamour leading up to this, and the popular narrative was how can we allow Chinese companies to do business in India when we’re in the middle of a military standoff,” said Nikhil Pahwa, a digital policy expert and founder of tech website MediaNama.
Just months before the ban, India had also restricted investment from Chinese companies, Pahwa added. “TikTok wasn’t a one-off case. Today, India has banned over 500 Chinese apps to date.”
At the time, India had about 200 million TikTok users, the most outside of China. And the company also employed thousands of Indians.
TikTok users and content creators, however, needed a place to go — and the ban provided a multi-billion dollar opportunity to snatch up a big market. Within months, Google rolled out YouTube Shorts and Instagram pushed out its Reels feature. Both mimicked the short-form video creation that TikTok had excelled at.
“And they ended up capturing most of the market that TikTok had vacated,” said Pahwa.
In India, TikTok content was hyperlocal, which made it quite unique. It opened a window into the lives of small-town India, with videos coming from tier 2 and 3 cities that showed people doing tricks while laying down bricks, for example.
But for the most part, content creators and users in the four years since the ban have moved on to other platforms.
Winnie Sangma misses posting videos on TikTok and earning a bit of money. But after the ban, he migrated to Instagram and now has 15,000 followers. The process, for the most part, has been relatively painless.
“I have built up followers on Instagram too, and I am making money from it, but the experience isn’t like how it used to be on TikTok,” he said.
Rajib Dutta, a frequent scroller on TikTok, also switched to Instagram after the ban. “It wasn’t really a big deal,” he said.
The legislation to outlaw the app has won congressional approval and now awaits a signature from Biden.
The measure gives ByteDance, the app’s parent company, nine months to sell it, and three more if a sale is underway. If this doesn’t happen, TikTok will be banned. It would take at least a year before a ban goes into effect, but with likely court challenges, it could stretch longer.
In India, the ban in 2020 was swift. TikTok and other companies were given time to respond to questions on privacy and security, and by January 2021, it became a permanent ban.
But the situation in the U.S. is different, said Pahwa. “In India, TikTok decided not to go to court, but the U.S. is a bigger revenue market for them. Also, the First Amendment in America is fairly strong, so it’s not going to be as easy for the U.S. to do this as it was for India,” he said, in reference to free speech rights in the U.S. Constitution.
As Chinese apps proliferate across the world, Pahwa says countries need to assess their dependency on China and develop a way to reduce it as the apps can pose a national security risk.
The app is also banned in Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan and restricted in many countries in Europe.
“Chinese intelligence law and its cybersecurity law can allow Chinese apps to work in the interest of their own security. That creates a situation of distrust and it becomes a national security risk for others,” said Pahwa.
“There should be different rules for democratic countries and for authoritarian regimes where companies can act as an extension of the state,” he added.
—-
This story corrects the expert's erroneous reference to Fourth instead of First Amendment.
FILE- Activists of Jammu and Kashmir Dogra Front shout slogans against Chinese President Xi Jinping next to a banner showing the logos of TikTok and other Chinese apps banned in India during a protest in Jammu, India, July 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)
