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The case against the TikTok ban bill

The renewed support for banning or forcing a sale of TikTok doesn’t seem to be tied to any newly uncovered information about TikTok, ByteDance or the Chinese Communist Party.

A year ago, I visited TikTok’s US headquarters to preview its new “transparency center,” a central piece of its multibillion-dollar effort to convince the US its meme factory isn’t a national security threat. In a letter to lawmakers opposing the measure, the EFF, American Civil Liberties Union and other groups argued that it would “set an alarming global precedent for excessive government control over social media platforms.” “The State Department has been highly critical of countries that have shut down services,” Greene told Engadget, noting that the US condemned the Nigerian government for blocking Twitter in 2021.

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