San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Nothing to like in the rush to ban TikTok
It feels weird to refer to the U.S. House’s legislation forcing the sale of TikTok as rushed.
After all, we’ve been hearing complaints about the popular video-sharing app from federal and state officials for at least four years.
In August 2020, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order essentially banning TikTok in the United States if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, did not sell the app within 45 days. A federal judge blocked Trump’s order.
In December 2022, prompted by security fears that the Chinese government could harvest TikTok user data, President Joe Biden signed a spending package that included a near-complete ban on the use of TikTok by federal employees on government-issued devices.
We’ve seen similar actions by Canada, the European Union and several U.S. states, including Texas.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., last year expressed the anti-TikTok sentiment of many of our politicians when he called the app a “Chinese weapon aimed directly at the United States.”
Our political leaders have had a long time to process the impact of TikTok, assess its benefits and potential risks,
and develop a holistic strategy. But that’s not what happened Wednesday, when the House, by an overwhelming vote of 352-65, passed a bill forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in this country.
The whole exercise had the feel of a hasty, poorly thoughtout move done to generate splashy headlines and toughon-China talking points.
The notion of the U.S. House passing a bill targeting a single company should give all of us cause for concern. We’re sliding down a slippery slope.
Think about the fact that 170 million Americans — including two-thirds of this country’s teenagers — use TikTok.
Think about the fact that it has helped many entrepreneurial Americans build interest for their ideas and establish business partnerships. Creative artists have used it to showcase their work. Millions of Americans value it as a source of friendship and entertainment.
A Washington Post piece in June told the story of Carly
Ann Goddard, a young woman from rural Montana who had reached nearly 100,000 people on TikTok and earned between $2,000 and $6,000 a month by endorsing merchandise on the app.
Goddard said she started using TikTok to rescue herself from her feelings of isolation as
a stay-at-home mom in a small town. With the threat of TikTok being banned in her state, she and her husband thought of relocating to Florida.
Of course, many Americans forced off the app will move to other social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook and X.
Just like TikTok, those social-media companies collect the personal data of their users. What’s to prevent them from sharing that data with foreign countries, including China?
We should also consider that ByteDance is a privately held company. International investors own 60% of it, while its employees (including more than 7,000 Americans) own 20% and the remaining 20% is owned by its software-engineering founders.
In response to concerns about the possibility of the Chinese government collecting private information about American users, ByteDance agreed in 2020 to give Oracle, a Texas-based tech company, the power to host TikTok’s user data and vet the app’s algorithms.
None of these considerations, however could sway members of Congress who wanted to be able to claim they’d stuck it to the Chinese government.
The issue took a farcical turn this past week when Trump, a vehement TikTok critic over the years, came out against the proposed ban on the grounds that he didn’t want Facebook (which he calls “an enemy of the people”) to come away strengthened.
There are some on Capitol Hill, such as South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who are inclined to support a TikTok ban because they’re worried about the use of social media for bullying. It’s a reasonable concern, but how are you solving that problem by targeting one social media platform and ignoring the others?
If Congress wants to pass a serious social media bill, one that addresses security issues, user privacy and online bullying, that legislation should be comprehensive and fair rather than a knee-jerk shot at a single, high-profile business.
Better to do it right than to do it fast.