IN-DEPTH: Legislation Intended to Ban TikTok Can Be a Double–edged Sword for US Citizens Freedom: Experts

The social media application logo for TikTok is displayed on the screen of an iPhone in front of a U.S. flag and Chinese flag background in Washington on March 16, 2023. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

The Senate bill introduced with the intention to ban TikTok over security concerns could potentially infringe on U.S. citizens’ freedoms, according to a communication technology provider and experts.

There are attempts to regulate communications tools due to threats posed by technologies connected to foreign adversaries, such as Chinese-owned TikTok, a popular video-sharing app with 150 million users in America.

A bipartisan bill, dubbed the RESTRICT Act, empowers the secretary of commerce to review foreign-linked communication technology products and services like social media apps and to take necessary action if those technologies pose any risk to “U.S. national security or the safety of U.S. persons.”

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) (C) is joined by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) (L) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) (2nd L) at the U.S. Capitol, on March 07, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), does not mention TikTok by name but is intended to target the app, the sponsors said.

“The RESTRICT Act comprehensively addresses the ongoing threat posed by technology from foreign adversaries by better empowering the Department of Commerce to review, prevent, and mitigate ICT (information, communications, and technology) transactions that pose an undue risk,” Warner and Thune said in a statement.

The challenges addressed by the legislation also include apps from vendors in China, such as WeChat and Alibaba’s Alipay, according to the statement. The lawmakers pointed out a lack of consistent policies to identify threats posed by foreign communication products and insufficient powers to address those threats, the statement said.

“Congress needs to stop taking a piecemeal approach when it comes to technology from adversarial nations that pose national security risks,” Thune said in a statement. “I’m pleased to work with Senator Warner to establish a holistic, methodical approach to address the threats posed by technology platforms–like TikTok–from foreign adversaries.”

The legislation has also been endorsed by the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that the RESTRICT Act “is one of the things we will look at, for sure,” at a press conference on May 3.

TikTok

Political commentator and China analyst Gordon Chang speaks at the CPAC convention in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 29, 2020. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Gordon Chang, an expert on China and China-U.S. relations at Gatestone Institute and a proponent of the legislation, wrote that TikTok has not only been used by the Chinese communist regime to steal user data and send it to China, but it is also a propaganda tool at the hands of the regime.

“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used TikTok to, among other things, glorify drug use, push critical race theory, and amplify Russian disinformation about the war in Ukraine. The CCP does not allow the Chinese people to use the app. TikTok’s twin site in China, Douyin, promotes patriotic themes,” Chang said.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army intelligence unit worked out of the Houston consulate—later closed by the Trump Administration—to identify Americans likely to participate in Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests in 2020 and sent them videos on TikTok regarding how to organize riots, Chang wrote.

“TikTok is a very problematic application that is a surveillance nightmare. It is clearly sending information to China that poses a national security threat,” said Bill Ottman, co-founder and CEO of the Minds social media network.

But the RESTRICT Act could potentially be used to fine people in the United States for using virtual private networks (VPNs), Ottman told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. “It’s just such a great example of the hijacking of a good cause.”

VPNs give users online privacy and anonymity by creating a private network from a public internet connection.

VPN Provider Has Concerns

The screen of a laptop with the word "VPN" written in the search field of the Chinese search engine Baidu taken on March 30, 2018. Fred Dufour/AFP via Getty Images

A spokesperson for Private Internet Access (PIA), a popular VPN provider, said, according to a company blog, “Prohibiting the use of certain technologies or social media sites bleakly opposes the vision of an open and free digital world and raises serious concerns about the future of digital freedom in the U.S.”

The terminology used in the RESTRICT Act is “far too broad, ” Kristin Hassel, an Information Systems Specialist at PIA, said in the blog.

Hassel singled out a definition of a category of technology product or services, such as apps, that pose “an undue or unacceptable risk” of “coercive or criminal activities by a foreign adversary” with a goal to undermine democratic processes and institutions or steer policy and regulatory decisions in favor of foreign adversaries.

According to Hassel, part of the definition of this category “about steering policy and regulatory decisions in favor of foreign governments is vague at best.”

“It could easily be misinterpreted or, worse, be used to justify anything considered in opposition to “U.S. policy” and “regulatory decisions,” Hassel said in the blog.

Moreover, the legislation lacks concrete rules regarding the digital privacy of U.S. citizens during app review, Hassel noted. “App monitoring as covered under the RESTRICT Act could lead to large-scale surveillance of U.S. citizens’ online activity.”

“The legislation also fails to adequately address content manipulation, which is a primary reason why so many of these apps and services are an issue in the first place,” the blogger said.

Hassel also found it worrisome that in order to trigger the assessment of a potential national security risk of an online service under the RESTRICT Act, the government only needs to have data on at least 1 million U.S. residents, which is less than 1 percent of the population.

Those who breach the RESTRICT Act will face penalties of up to $1 million fine or up to 20 years in prison.

Expert Opinions

The Mises Institute raises concerns that the definition of the information and communications technology products and services that can pose a security threat under the RESTRICT Act, as defined by the bill, is “expansive and unspecific.”

“They range from desktop applications, mobile apps, web-based applications, payment platforms, and gaming systems to webcams, Wi-Fi networks, drone cameras, home surveillance systems, and even biotechnology,” according to Mises, a research center focused on free market economics and libertarian thought.

Jason Kelley and David Greene, directors at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said that the foundation opposes the RESTRICT Act. The reasons for opposition are that the bill seeks to “protect data from foreign adversaries,” the directors said. “But under our current data privacy laws, there are many domestic adversaries engaged in manipulative and invasive data collection as well.”

The EFF advocated legislation that would prohibit foreign and domestic social media companies from collecting, retaining, and selling user data, Kelley and Greene said, arguing that such a law would prevent foreign adversaries from obtaining consumer social media data.

The RESTRICT Act also gives the government broad power to punish any person for using VPN to get a prohibited app, e.g., TikTok, or using other means to obtain it, Kelley and Greene said. They stated, however, that the U.S. government had not shared information justifying the ban of TikTok.

The directors do not believe that the RESTRICT Act would allow the government to surveil user devices. Still, they pointed out that the power given to the government to investigate potential user data is too broadly described.

The EFF is a donor-funded nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world, according to its website. Among the organization’s donors is Open Society Foundations, funded by George Soros.

 Labeling Apps

“Regulation in this realm [information and communication technology] is so risky, so it has to be very sensitively crafted,” Ottman said, suggesting that apps in the app stores could be labeled “for what’s going on with them.”

App labels can indicate whether an app is surveillance-based or user data is funneled to other countries if it is open source and how it preserves privacy, similarly to how Twitter started labeling media companies, Ottman said.

National Public Radio was listed by Twitter as a "U.S. state-affiliated media." Twitter screenshot via The Epoch Times

In April, Twitter began labeling certain media organizations ‘ accounts as “state-affiliated” or “government-founded,” but it dropped the labels in a couple of weeks following the backlash from those media.

A large majority of apps in the app store have surveillance mechanisms in them, including applications developed by U.S.-based companies, Ottman pointed out, stressing the need for “consistent standards” for apps regardless of their country of origin.

It is not known what Big Tech companies do with data behind the scenes, Ottman said. They could be selling that data, he added.

People think that because a company is in the United States, it would never betray their interests, Ottman said. “But the likely reality is that they [companies in the U.S.] are betraying our interests. In fact, it could be more nefarious.”

More sensible legislation would be an “encrypt act,” where you’re actually protecting citizens, mandating end-to-end encryption throughout the government, and then educating people about the dangers of surveillance applications in the app stores, Ottman suggested.

Jan Jekielek contributed to this report.