'To be clear, I have no love lost for TikTok: it permanently banned my account without cause or explanation. That said, it still shouldn’t be censored entirely, for both policy and legal reasons,' Brad_Polumbo writes.
We don’t see a whole lot of bipartisanship in Washington, D.C., these days. But there is one area where something of a bipartisan consensus is seemingly forming: the push to ban TikTok. There’s just one problem: While China hawks in the GOP and establishment Democratic technocrats within the Biden administration both have valid critiques of TikTok, their push to ban it outright is deeply flawed.
The conversation about banning TikTok often breezes past the downsides of a ban, as if all that would be lost is some cute cat videos on peoples’ timelines. In reality, the drastic social, political, and economic fallout of an outright ban on one of the most popular and influential apps in America can hardly be overstated.It’s not actually apparent that a ban could really stop determined Americans from using TikTok.
Beyond that, the government can investigate TikTok and make its data collection practices known to the public so that if Americans aren’t comfortable with the level of data that’s being gathered, they can choose to stop using the app. That smacks of backroom dealing and crony capitalism. The profit interests of competitors should never be used to set public policy, and, unfortunately, that’s at least part of what’s motivating the current anti-TikTok wave.Many critics are warning that any attempt by the U.S. government to completely ban TikTok would violate the First Amendment. After all, the app is, at its core, a platform for ideas and expression.
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