America’s TikTok Ban Is A Threat To Free Speech

Authored by Micky Horstman via RealClearPolitics,

TikTok’s servers went dark for 12 hours on Jan. 19, but thanks to an extension from President Donald Trump, TikTok is back on the app stores, and its clock hasn’t run out yet.

The divestment, ban, and then subsequent extension have justifiably sparked criticism, especially among young people. And while half of Americans surveyed in March of 2023 supported a ban, now a majority of Americans disapprove. What accounts for such a swing in public opinion?

For a year, Americans watched lawmakers contradict their own claims that the app is a “national security threat.” Now, they are starting to see the ban for what it really is – an attack on consumer choice and free speech.

Originally, government leaders rejected TikTok’s kill switch and security proposal in 2022. Instead, they claimed the app was such a threat to national security that divestment was the only option. The government presented these concerns to the court which allowed them to override arguments about users’ free speech rights.

If TikTok was such a large threat to national security that it couldn’t continue to operate, then politicians should’ve suspended their accounts after the ban, instead of choosing to campaign on them. And the Trump administration shouldn’t have offered an extension if the product hasn’t changed – especially since Trump originally called for the ban.

Before the divestment vote, lawmakers were given an exclusive report that detailed TikTok’s alleged security concerns – members of Congress said it highlighted problems that existed across all social media platforms, none exclusive to TikTok. Without knowing the extent of those concerns, the public remains at risk. Why allow the data of 170 million Americans to be stolen, tracked, or whatever they believe the crisis is, for an extra year? If the problem is that serious, why haven’t they released that information?

Lawmakers’ concerns about foreign ownership were never really convincing when they singled out one Chinese owned company and not others. What about Temu and Shein? Both are Chinese-owned sites that have similar amounts of American users and data risks, plus well-documented labor violations, and you don’t see Congress talking about forcing them to divest.

What about the anonymous forum 4chan? It has murky foreign ownership and is often linked to mass shooters. Why isn’t Congress interested in regulating that?

Even American-owned X and Meta have their own documented abuses – from allowing Russian assets to buy political ads to unnaturally promoting right-wing content in feeds.

Americans aren’t buying the “national security concerns” anymore. We watched nearly the rest of the world carry on with an app said to be too dangerous for us, and as soon as it started polling poorly, we immediately had our access restored. And taking into account recent revelations from The Hill about the real motivations for ban, the pushback is warranted.

New reporting suggests that TikTok’s ban was actually expedited as a means of hiding coverage of the war in Gaza, not mounting concerns over Chinese ownership.

If true, the remaining “national security argument” unravels.

It’s time we acknowledge what this ban actually is: a muzzle. A government ban on TikTok is an attack on free speech. On this, Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who could not be further apart on the political spectrum, agreed. The American people agree. The U.S. government cannot be allowed to control the opinions that its citizens express online – even if those opinions criticize an ally.

Of course we wouldn’t want Russian newscasts broadcasting actively on U.S. airwaves or the Chinese printing and distributing newspapers on our soil. But social media is different by design. It’s user-generated content; it’s not owned by the government and shouldn’t be classified as legacy media. Both the government and news media have the option to participate in “the new town square,” but it doesn’t exist for them – it exists for the people.

To a majority of Americans, it has become clear that the TikTok ban violates the First Amendment rights of the over 170 million Americans who use the platform and, furthermore, it jeopardizes the livelihoods of thousands of U.S. residents, content creators, and businesses who rely on the app for revenue. The result of the court’s decision was unfair market manipulation – stifling the choices and financial opportunities of Americans – that will only serve TikTok’s competitors. These are hard-working Americans whose freedom of speech and right to earn a living are being steamrolled by the government.

It’s time lawmakers officially reconsider whether this violation of rights is truly warranted. If it is, the American people deserve to know all the reasons why.

Micky Horstman is the communications associate for the Illinois Policy Institute and a social mobility fellow for Young Voices.