TikTok ban faces pushback

LILY O’GORMAN Editor In-Chief

Amid recent bills proposing state TikTok bans, fears of a nationwide ban have emerged among the app’s millions of American users. However, the fact is, a national ban will never happen–it is unrealistic, impractical, and most significant to lawmakers, unconstitutional.

This argument is not meant to underplay the security risks TikTok’s parent company ByteDance poses, because the risks are valid. Specifically, TikTok has raised red flags about stealing its user’s information and potentially pushing propaganda and misinformation on its “For You Page” through its elusive algorithm. In a hearing last November, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that the app’s risks “…include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so choose” (NPR).

However, there is simply not enough tangible evidence of information theft for lawmakers to prove that TikTok threatens national security. In 2020, Trump attempted to shut down TikTok in the U.S. with an executive order but was blocked by multiple federal courts whose judges called the shutdown an “arbitrary and capricious” overstep in authority, and one that inhibits freedom of speech. Similarly, recent pushes to instate a national ban will undoubtedly face backlash from its 113.25 million

American users and First Amendment. In a similar case in 2017, Packingham v. North Carolina, a bill proposed to ban sex offenders from social media was deemed unconstitutional because, as the majority described, “to foreclose access to social media altogether is to prevent the user from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights.” Though this case obviously does not deal with sex offenders, the same line of thinking applies. Social media outlets are an arena for the exchange of ideas and opinions, and enacting bans is a slippery slope that will be near impossible to navigate regardless of how noble lawmaker’s intentions may be. This does not mean TikTok will go unrestricted forever, though; there are certainly ways to curtail its potential security risks besides enacting a nationwide ban. For one, more targeted, specific bans are far more likely to pass. For example, 27 states thus far have banned TikTok from government devices on account of security concerns.

First Amendment expert Kevin Goldberg of the Freedom Forum Institute argues that the government should, as a first step, force TikTok to be more transparent about where its user’s data is stored to continue allowing American users to download the app. As an alternative solution, Golberg additionally suggested that the FBI “require… divestiture of some foreign ownership” of the app. These approaches, though not perfect, could be a few methods of demanding answers from the company directly as opposed to an outright ban–a ban that would, frankly, never pass.