What Does This First Amendment Organization Have to Say About the New Law to Force the Sale of TikTok?

​Now that the bill to force the sale of TikTok has passed the U.S. Senate, and its signature by President Biden is certain, Protect The 1st as a First Amendment organization must speak out.
 
We believe the bill – soon-to-be-law – is reasonable.
 
Many of our fellow civil liberties peers make the valid point that if the government can silence one social media platform, it can close any media outlet, newspaper, website, or TV channel. We would oppose any such move with forceful public protest. But this is a compelled divestiture, which seems like the least restrictive way to protect the speech rights of TikTok’s American users while protecting their data. TikTok’s content is not the issue. The issue is one of ownership and operations.
 
The fundamental problem, of course, and the problem that gave rise to this legislation, is that TikTok is obligated by Chinese law to share all its data with the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the Chinese Communist Party. Under President Xi Jinping, Beijing has crushed democracy in Hong Kong, and silenced a newspaper – Apple Daily – while imprisoning its publisher, Jimmy Lai. Xi’s regime also frequently expresses malevolent intentions toward the United States. It arms Russia’s imperialist war to conquer Ukraine, a democracy. And it frequently advertises its own imperialist plan to conquer Taiwan, another democracy.
 
It doesn’t make sense to treat a publication utterly beholden to a regime that shutters newspapers, imprisons publishers, and supports wars on democracies as if it were just another social media platform.
 
Caution is warranted. A crisis between the United States and China is growing increasingly likely. TikTok gives China the means to dig into the private data of 150 million Americans, including families with parents working in the U.S. military, government, and business. To mandate a sale to an owner outside of China would begin the protection of Americans’ data, while allowing TikTok to remain the popular and vivid platform that people enjoy.
 
For more background on this issue, check out this recent PT1st post.