The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill this week that would force TikTok to divest from China and sell to an American buyer or cease operations in the United States. It now heads to the Senate, where its future is uncertain as a growing number of lawmakers in both chambers of Congress raise concerns about the implications of a forced sale and about the bill itself.
Some of these concerns are legitimate, some are not. The argument that the bill would squash free speech rights, for example, is nonsense. There is no free speech right that allows a company to operate in tandem with our nation’s top adversary to collect and store data from American users. TikTokers can and will be allowed to use the platform and post whatever they want — this bill does not so much as suggest otherwise. It just would ensure TikTok can’t operate as a front for the Chinese Communist Party.
