Congress should pass the TikTok bill, but the problems are more pervasive

TikTok is a clear national security threat. With over 170 million American users, TikTok’s Chinese ownership and ability to collect, store and possibly even share data raises serious national security concerns. 

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill calling for TikTok to divest from its Chinese ownership or face a ban in the U.S. However, the bill did not pass without eliciting concerns and objections from both sides of the political spectrum. While the bill should be passed, it is an incomprehensive step in the right direction; TikTok is only a part of more pervasive problems in our media landscape and culture.

Owned by ByteDance, a China-based company, TikTok has raised alarms within the U.S. since 2019. The grave national security risk that Chinese ownership of TikTok poses is clear when considering that Chinese law demands that Chinese and China-based entities “support, assist, and cooperate” with state intelligence work. This means ByteDance can be forced — if not the default already — to share private user data of tens of millions of Americans on TikTok with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Furthermore, the vice president of ByteDance is himself the head of the CCP committee at ByteDance — yep, that committee exists. 

TikTok’s nefarious and exploitative data-collection practices represent, however, only one aspect of its national security risk. With nearly a third of all Americans on the platform, Tiktok also grants the Chinese government unparalleled access to manipulate American public and political life. 

It is well-documented that TikTok systematically censors and promotes content “on the basis of whether it is aligned with or opposed to the interests of the Chinese Government.” While censoring “sensitive” mentions of Tiananmen Square or the ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs, TikTok sows cultural division in the U.S. by platforming Chinese-state media pushing political narratives. TikTok all but magnified this threat by explicitly engaging in American political discourse surrounding its banning, issuing an urgent pop-up screen prompting its millions of users to call their representatives. As China expert Michael Sobolik puts it, TikTok is “China’s greatest asymmetric advantage.”

To mitigate the national security risks posed by TikTok, the House of Representatives recently passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in a vote of 352-65. Yet, rare and bizarre coalitions formed among left-wing progressives like Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (AOC) and right-wing freedom-caucus members like Andy Biggs, who both voted in opposition to the bill. Citing that the bill doesn’t address the root issues and raises privacy concerns, 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against the bill.

While explaining that the bill doesn’t comprehensively address data privacy issues, the Democrats and Republicans who opposed the bill also raised First Amendment and libertarian concerns. Representative Dan Bishop tweeted that the bill “infringes on the First Amendment and grants undue power to the administrative state.” AOC similarly tweeted, “There are serious antitrust and privacy questions here, and any national security concerns should be laid out to the public before a vote.” 

First of all, this bill is not a violation of First Amendment rights. It is important to understand that this bill does not ban TikTok nor regulate the content of speech being posted; it merely calls for Chinese divestment (TikTok users, you can relax, but you probably should stop using the addictive app anyway). TikTok can still operate in the U.S., just under American ownership — not that of the CCP. 

Some lawmakers, like Bishop, also opposed the bill on grounds that it would confer excessive authority to the administrative state (in this case, the executive branch), which could potentially use the authority to infringe upon civil liberties. While these concerns are certainly genuine, it is important to note that 1) this bill and its provisions are strictly specified, rendering the case for potential abuse tenuous and 2) issues of national security trump minor civil libertarian concerns. For example, it has long been established judicial precedent under the Fourth Amendment, which safeguards individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures, that national security considerations justify a delimited and circumscribed exception. This exception aims to strike a constitutional balance between security and liberty.

While caution must certainly be exercised in granting new authority to the executive, TikTok’s national security concerns negate and the bill’s specifications annul any civil libertarian concerns. And sorry, AOC — national security is not a “public” issue that we can relegate to the hip-shakers and trend-makers on TikTok.

That being said, for all the discussion on its constitutionality, does the TikTok bill truly address national security concerns? Not really. 

While the bill purports to “protect” Americans from “foreign adversary controlled applications,” it fails to regulate American companies transferring American data to foreign governments. The current bill only applies to companies linked to the four countries deemed “adversaries” of the U.S.: China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. While this makes the bill specific in its application, it is incomprehensive in addressing the issue. If the goal is to protect Americans’ user data from foreign adversaries for national security purposes, wouldn’t it make more sense to regulate any company that shares data with foreign companies, not just companies domiciled in foreign adversaries? 

The necessity for such comprehensive legislation has already been warranted by numerous cases of American companies cozying up with our adversaries, extending beyond just social media user data. For example, before it pulled out of China following the pandemic, Airbnb (a U.S.-domiciled company) shared private, American user data and messages between American renters and hosts with the CCP, presumably as a condition to operate in China. In another case, BlackRock (another U.S.-domiciled company), which is the world’s largest asset manager, has funneled more than $429 million dollars from American investors “into Chinese companies that ‘act directly against the interests of the United States.’” 

The threat American companies pose to Americans by selling, sharing or funneling their property — be it in data or dollars — to foreign adversaries is the same threat foreign companies pose when doing the same. Picking and choosing to whom regulation does and does not apply is cronyism — and, in the case of TikTok, defeats the purpose of any national security legislation. The only actors who stand to wholly benefit are TikTok’s surreptitious rivals (Facebook and YouTube), whose lobbyists are undoubtedly drooling over the idea of a TikTok ban.

That being said, the goal should not — and never should — be to regulate American businesses that serve abroad to death, but rather to implement consistent and conservative regulation of companies accessing the U.S. market to preserve 1) national security, 2) public safety, 3) market integrity and 4) American values and democratic norms.

What we need is a thorough bill, irrespective of ownership or domicile, that declares it illegal for any holder of American user data to share that data with our foreign enemies. Period. These regulations would, therefore, apply to all social media applications, including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Google’s YouTube and ByteDance’s TikTok.

Till then, cutting its supporters some slack, this bill, while incomprehensive, is a step in the right direction. It addresses and establishes that TikTok — whose influence on American culture and youth is concerning, to say the least — is a national security concern. In doing so, it sets at least some legislative precedent for other, hopefully more inclusive, measures to follow.

Aneesh Swaminathan is a freshman from Plymouth, Minn. majoring in Political Science and Molecular and Cellular Biology.