Should TikTok be banned?

Congress can do better than this bill

There’s been an average of one school shooting a week in America so far this year. Every day for 12 months, rising sea surface temperatures have broken records. The Supreme Court is stripping women of their rights. A presidential candidate warns of a “bloodbath” if he loses.

But don’t worry, the House of Representatives just passed a new bill to protect kids — by banning TikTok. I wish I were kidding.

Let me be clear: I’m not a big tech apologist. They platform misinformation, hook kids in with addictive algorithms that hurt mental health, censor speech, and sell our data to the highest bidder. Congress needs to pass comprehensive legislation to address these challenges. This bill simply doesn’t get the job done.

Outlawing TikTok without an ownership change in the next 180 days means the app will be banned. A sale of that size can’t move forward without mandatory antitrust review, which could take more than a year. Were this bill signed into law, a ban is almost certain — a fact acknowledged even by the bill’s own cosponsors.

Some lawmakers say we need to bring TikTok under the umbrella of US law. These concerns sound legitimate, but the truth isn’t so simple. TikTok is incorporated and doing business in the United States, which makes it subject to US law. Forcing a sale from its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance, as this legislation aims to do, won’t stop it from collecting information — or even selling it to data brokers in China. Almost every big tech giant does this — our weak privacy laws allow them to get away with it.

That’s why Americans overwhelmingly support more regulation of what big tech companies do with our data. Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, Google, and more collect tons of personal information on us — with almost zero oversight. We’re one of the only developed countries with no significant data privacy laws on the books. Banning an app that was developed in China might make for a good sound bite, but it’s lazy legislating that does not solve the underlying problem. I also think we need more checks and balances about what our own government does with our information.

There are also fears that the Chinese government could spread propaganda or sow chaos during a US election. Members of Congress were given a classified briefing about both data privacy concerns and election interference. We were presented with zero evidence of anything unique to TikTok. Instead, top government officials basically told us their concerns apply to every social media platform.

User accounts and bot farms can be created anywhere. Russia set up accounts on Facebook to try to influence our elections in 2016 — it didn’t have to buy Facebook to do it. Even if ByteDance does sell TikTok, the Chinese Communist Party is still free to spread propaganda on the platform. We need a systematic approach to deal with these kinds of challenges from our adversaries; this bill does not provide one.

When it comes to fighting for human rights in China, my record takes a back seat to nobody. I’m the cochair of the bipartisan human rights commission in Congress. Democratic and Republican presidents have signed into law my bills standing up to President Xi Jinping’s censorship, surveillance, and repression in Tibet, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang.

Banning an app that millions of people use to communicate and express themselves is a violation of the First Amendment. Nonpartisan watchdogs like the American Civil Liberties Union agree — this bill represents an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech. But it’s also an act of weakness and hypocrisy that undermines our credibility on the world stage. It will not help us stand up to China; it will make us more like China. There’s a reason Congress has never banned the public from downloading a specific app from app stores. It’s because the free flow of information is a foundational strength of our society. America doesn’t ban apps — we welcome the vigorous contest of ideas as a core pillar of our democracy.

I don’t doubt that TikTok poses serious dangers to the American people. So do other social media platforms. YouTube’s algorithm sends kids down the alt-right pipeline. Elon Musk amplifies false claims about election fraud on X, his own platform, after firing all his fact-checkers.

Congress can do better than this bill. This bill is not it. It was rushed through with zero opportunity for amendment and barely any debate. Most members of Congress who voted for the ban probably don’t even know how TikTok works. They should have been given months to engage with experts, talk to constituents, and explain their position. Instead, lawmakers got eight days.

So before Congress swoops in to disrupt a hugely popular app, I challenge my colleagues in the Senate: Make a compelling case. Do the hard work of passing comprehensive federal legislation to tackle the problems that plague all social media platforms.

Don’t prey on fear. The American people deserve better.

Banning an app that was developed in China might make for a good sound bite, but it’s lazy legislating that does not solve the underlying problem.