As the RESTRICT Act makes its way through the Senate, the potential TikTok ban has never felt so close to becoming reality. The consequences of making TikTok illegal in the US would be extensive and far-reaching. To start off, prohibiting the popular video-sharing app would raise serious First Amendment concerns by directly restricting Americans’ freedom of speech. Its ban would also disproportionately affect small businesses, since it offers a more accessible and cost-effective way than the traditional advertising and marketing campaigns.
Moreover, making TikTok illegal would give the US government wider authority to censor and surveil the online activities of its citizens. This could even open the door to other types of censorial filtering at the ISP level. Ironically, all this would make the United States look startlingly similar to China itself, the country known for its stringent Great Firewall. Last but not least, a TikTok ban would also weaken its credibility when critiquing similar actions on an international level, as it would impose unacceptable restrictions on citizens’ digital freedom and raise questions over how far the government is willing to compromise the privacy rights of its citizens.
Caitlin Vogus, Deputy Director of the Center For Democracy & Technology (CDT)’s Free Expression Project, wrote in a blog post that a nationwide TikTok ban would prevent millions of users from speaking through the app in the future and prohibit new users from downloading it. Even with a VPN service, Americans are still likely to lose more than gain from its ban.
Marvin Winkelmann from AFK, a social media marketing agency, highlighted another potential consequence: the ban would affect small companies more harshly than bigger brands with marketing and advertising budgets.
Data privacy experts are also calling on lawmakers to pass The American Data Protection and Privacy Act (ADPPA) instead of the RESTRICT Act. The proposed bill would limit the opportunities of companies to collect massive amounts of users’ personal data, and therefore protect their privacy better than the current bill.
To conclude, a ban on TikTok in the US could set a precedent for other countries and create a domino effect able to further curb internet freedom. Protecting people’s private data is important, but banning TikTok is likely not the solution.
