In a somewhat surprising turn of events, this week the Senate passed a foreign aid package soon after signed into law by President Biden that includes a bill forcing parent company ByteDance to sell off TikTok or risk the app being banned in the US.
While bills seeking to ban TikTok have existed in many forms over the past few years, this RESTRICT Act was first introduced in March 2023 and quickly managed to gain bipartisan support. Despite outcry from both TikTok users and free speech advocates, lawmaker’s national security concerns came out on top and allowed the bill to make its way into a foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
While the bill provides the US Secretary of Commerce with more oversight and power to act against companies owned by “foreign adversaries” of the United States, it doesn’t really address many of the privacy concerns that have been cited by lawmakers and which the same could be said of many US-controlled companies. A more effective option for addressing privacy concerns would probably be the The American Privacy Rights Act, a data privacy bill introduced earlier this month. So while hopefully that bill will be passed in the future, its contents will likely face much more domestic opposition from US-based tech companies. Regardless of other legislation and criticisms of the RESTRICT Act, what’s certain is that ByteDance officially has nine months (potentially twelve if the next president extends that deadline) to figure out what to do.
So what is going to happen next? For proponents of this bill, probably not much in the immediate future. I feel fairly confident that everyone involved in passing this bill will be looking to avoid the subject as much as possible until after the 2024 presidential election. While the Democrats will likely get more of the blame than Republicans since the bill was signed by President Biden, I believe neither party has any desire to wade into these contentious waters. TikTok found massive popularity with US voters (though its recent push into commercialization has dampened that enthusiasm recently) and could potentially alienate candidates from potential voters. This will probably turn into a problem for whoever ends up in office.
As for ByteDance, they have been fairly adamant about fighting the ban in court on first amendment grounds. Whether that will be an effective strategy depends on whether free speech concerns will be able to outweigh the government’s national security concerns. It’s hard to say at this point, though historically I think the US courts have tended to give our government very broad oversight when it comes to national security concerns (see: The Patriot Act). And then in the court of public opinion I’m sure the company will do what it can to garner public support and put pressure on US lawmakers.
But overall I think most actors in this drama will be staying fairly quiet outside of the courtroom, except for possibly TikTok’s users if they decide to make more noise about a potential ban. Until this court case plays out we will just have to wait and see what happens. Rest assured, for now your repetitive QVC-imitations and ad-saturated video feeds are safe for now.