A bill that would ban TikTok in the US – unless its Chinese owner sells most of it – has passed the Senate and signed legally by President Biden on Wednesday.
Shortly after Biden signed the bill, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew released one Video He urged viewers to “rest assured, we’re not going anywhere,” adding that he was confident TikTok would win in a legal challenge. ByteDance said Thursday on Toutiao, a Chinese social media service it owns, that it “has no plans to sell TikTok.”
The new law comes after years Try to ban the extremely popular short video platform, including from former President Trumpbecause of national security concerns. However, a digital law expert said this is the case in the US no evidence presented to support his claims and considers the ban to be unconstitutional.
Why the ban is unconstitutional
The legislation requires TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance to sell a majority of the company within nine months, with an additional three months possible if a sale is planned. If this is not the case, the app will be blocked. But Legal challenges loom The time frame could extend for years.
According to Anupam Chander, a TikTok ban is not only a major nuisance for America’s 170 million users, but could also be considered unconstitutional and a violation of the free speech of both users and the platform’s owner Professor of global regulation of new technologies at Georgetown University.
That’s because “the clear interference with free speech is not justified on national security grounds,” he told Fortune. While the US has claimed that China will use the app to monitor Americans and blamed TikTok for it cultivate propagandaHe said the government had provided no public evidence of this.
In court, much of the debate will likely focus on whether the ban would violate Americans’ and TikTok’s First Amendment rights, Chander said. As a Chinese company based in the U.S., he explained, TikTok has the same rights as a U.S. person “and certainly constitutional rights.”
TikTok will likely argue that its right to public communication is affected by this law, as if the US government had mandated new ownership of it New York Times, he added. It could also be argued that the law constitutes “viewpoint discrimination” by targeting their specific views, which Chander says is particularly problematic under the First Amendment and frowned upon by courts.
Other privacy solutions
Alternative mechanisms, such as creating a national standard for privacy laws that apply to all companies operating in the U.S., could better protect Americans, he suggested.
While it is impossible to remain completely free from the risks of foreign surveillance on the Internet, Chander said a national standard for privacy regulations would help minimize the risk of breaches that exist on the Internet several American companies, in a broader sense. However, drafting and passing such a law would be complicated.
“It’s much easier politically to pass a law targeting TikTok than a privacy law,” he quipped.
The lack of a national standard in data protection laws has led to this caused considerable concern from different sectors, but there is no consensus on whether it should be more or less strict, noted Chander.
Without a national standard, ensuring consent online becomes cumbersome as websites must ensure that each user consents to the sharing of information about cookies and advertising. But each state has different rules, complicating efforts to design platforms with interstate audiences, such as news publishers, he pointed out.
California has passed laws like this Consumer Protection Act 2018, giving consumers more control over the personal data companies collect from them. And since then the state has passed away Suggestions giving consumers the right to correct inaccurate personal information that a company has about them, as well as the right to limit the use and disclosure of that information.
Ripple effects on Elon Musk’s X?
If there is a ban on TikTok in the United States, it could serve as a model in other parts of the world, particularly in countries that have criticized American apps for violating their national laws, Chander warned. Governments could claim that the US now recognizes the “dangers of foreign apps” and demand their own by mandating ownership of American apps.
He cited Brazil’s Supreme Court as a possible example is investigating Elon Musk about the spread of fake news on its social platform X as well as for alleged obstruction and criminal association. If the Brazilian judge orders a ban on X, “he could cite this TikTok law as support.”