Let's Ban Tik Tok

Should the Senate Pass This Bill?

Should we ban it? This question was debated on a recent Free Press-moderated session:

Geoffrey Cain and Walter Kirn kicked this back and forth for almost an hour. I didn’t like Kirn initially. He had an eye-rolling approach to his debate opponent. He would pick on specific things and correct or attack them without advancing a counter argument. It was a kind of guérilla warfare versus Cain’s straightforward argument. And then I changed my mind.

What Cain was arguing was that, in the same way we limit foreign ownership of our TV stations, we are justified in limiting ownership of TikTok because it is substantially controlled by a foreign adversary. He argued that, because China blocks YouTube and Google and iPhones for government and heavily regulates the internet, we are justified in blocking TikTok.

It is a fair point. After all, TikTok is a mass distribution tool that captures the mindshare of a lot of our youth.

Why did I change my mind? Kirn stipulated that China is awful: a totalitarian regime that does all the things that Cain says it does. What he was not prepared to do was to grant the kind of broad authority the proposed legislation seems to give to a US President to ban websites and apps that

...Provid[e] services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign adversary controlled application (including any source code of such application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application store) through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application.

...Provid[e]internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of such foreign adversary controlled application for users within the land or maritime borders of the United States.

The companies covered in addition to ByteDance, which is specifically named are any

...that [are] determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of [administrative procedure specified]

Kirn thought that too broad. He also wondered if what we are concerned about is just propaganda that happens to have very broad reach. He pointed out that the content on TikTok is not provided by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) but rather by users themselves.

I found this quite persuasive. What Cain was arguing was that China has done awful things in China and says they want to use digital technology to be a cutting edge weapon in asserting their position worldwide. He says that TikTok might be used in service of this end. Kirn points out that, while China is a reprehensible owner, one of the alternatives might be a purchase by a group led by Steve Mnuchin, former Treasury Secretary under Trump, backed by Saudi money. He notes that Saudi Arabia has been directly linked with some awful acts of terror (9/11) and with murder - Khashoggi. He also notes that we continue to be happy to sell vast quantities of our debt to China.

What Kirn was arguing was that we may be about to grant rather broad powers to a US President in supposed defense against things that might happen if a tool were to be used in a way in which it is not being used at present. Patriot Act 2.0. He was also arguing that emulating China’s bad behavior was not a model we should follow in America. There has to be a better approach.

I am not a fan of TikTok, but I am not sure the US government needs even more powers - to be wielded by a President of any stripe - to be legislated into existence. Maybe the Senate could improve this?