To be clear, this would not reach into phones and remove the app. This would immediately stop new updates for current users and prevent new users from signing up. The simplest approach, advocated by some in Congress, would be to ban the TikTok app from the Apple and Google app stores. And, most importantly, they would be compatible with our bedrock values of free speech and commerce, which Congress’s current strategies are not.Īt best, the TikTok ban considered by Congress would be ineffective at worst, a ban would force us to either adopt China’s censorship technology or create our own equivalent. They would also prevent data breaches and ransomware attacks from spilling our data out into the digital underworld, including hacker message boards and chat servers, hostile state actors, and outside hacker groups. Such laws would protect us in the long term, and not just from the app of the week. If we want to address the real problem, we need to enact serious privacy laws, not security theater, to stop our data from being collected, analyzed, and sold-by anyone.
They have digital dossiers on most people in the United States. Your data is bought and sold by data brokers you’ve never heard of who have few scruples about where the data ends up. But they’re not alone: Many apps you use do the same, including Facebook and Instagram, along with seemingly innocuous apps that have no need for the data. They collect extreme levels of information about users. They, like most large corporations in China, operate at the pleasure of the Chinese government. There’s no doubt that TikTok and ByteDance, the company that owns it, are shady.
In the end, all the effective ones would destroy the free Internet as we know it. There are several ways Congress might ban TikTok, each with different efficacies and side effects. We are here as technologists to tell you that this is a terrible idea and the side effects would be intolerable. Congress is currently debating bills that would ban TikTok in the United States.
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