TIKTOK: House Passes Bill to Ban the App
Written by Ariel Newbold on March 14, 2024
The House of Representatives voted yesterday, March 13, 2024, to pass a bill that could ban TikTok in the United States.
Republicans and Democrats voted overwhelmingly, 352-65, to pass the legislation which would give the president the power to designate certain social media apps under the control of foreign adversaries as national security threats. If an app is deemed a risk, it would be banned from online app stores. Many lawmakers believe that TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance is accessing the personal data of 170-million American users and using it to influence their views and interfere in the upcoming presidential election. The bill gives TikTok six months to divest from ByteDance and sell to another company.
The bill now heads to the Senate for a vote. If it passes there and is sent to President Biden’s desk, he says he will sign it into law. TikTok argues the bill violates its users’ First Amendment rights.
Hot Takes:
- Naturally, millions of TikTok users are freaking out about this bill.
- How does this ban survive a First Amendment challenge in the Supreme Court? Whatever happened to Freedom of Speech?
- This bill does not outright ban TikTok. The problem that lawmakers have is that the app is owned by a foreign adversary although TikTok, and China’s Foreign Ministry both insist that the app poses no risk to the United States’ security.
- Ironically, many of those same politicians including the President have TikTok accounts in hopes of connecting with young voters.
- Tech-savvy kids will find a work-around the ban.
- My biggest concern is: does this bill give the Presidency the right to ban any app that originates outside of the United States? Could this be a method for lawmakers to control what the population has access too?
