The TikTok Ban Is Missing Something: Evidence
Congress must show the evidence to gain Americans’ support for its proposed sale or ban of one of the world’s most popular social networks.
The TikTok legislation is a watershed moment in America's leadership of the internet.
Photographer: Antonin Utz/AFP/Getty Images
As expected, the bill banning TikTok, now packaged with vital foreign aid, flew through the House over the weekend and seems set to be passed by the Senate in the coming days. President Biden says he’ll sign it and start the clock: a year to sell or be effectively shut down.
The extraordinary measure has implications beyond merely upsetting the app’s 170 million US users. While defenders of the move point to similar acts by China — which forced Apple Inc. to block Meta Platforms Inc.’s apps last week — there is strength in the argument that says America is meant to hold itself to a higher standard of free speech and trade.