Rand Paul: Banning TikTok Is ‘Group Hysteria’
Attacks on TikTok are “part of an overall hysteria on the hill about China,” says Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.). Sensing a Congressional attitude shift on the app after President Donald Trump came to its defense, Paul recently introduced the “Repeal the TikTok Ban Act.” Paul’s bill would scrap last year’s mandate saying that China-based ByteDance must sell off its U.S. TikTok operations or face a ban in this country, a provision that was part of a larger bill known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
The move is part of Paul’s broader project of trying to keep alive a “consistently free trade and free markets” wing within the Republican Party. “I don’t want that part of the party to die, and [Republicans] just to become the nationalist populist party,” Paul tells Reason.
We talked Friday morning about TikTok, the trouble with isolating ourselves from China, Trump’s pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, the divisions between conservatives and libertarians on speech, and more. Below is a portion of our conversation, edited for clarity and length.
Reason: Can you tell me about your new “Repeal the TikTok Ban Act”—what it would do and why it’s necessary?
Rand Paul: I’ve been fighting against the TikTok ban since the idea came around a couple of years ago. I think it’s part of an overall hysteria on the hill about China, and also a misguided approach to wanting things to be better. They think, “Well, we’ll just tell China we don’t like them doing this, and we’ll put sanctions on them, we’ll ban their stuff, and then they’ll do better.” I think it’s actually the opposite. I think the more you ban trade, the more you separate yourself, the more you ban things like TikTok, the worse relations get. The less likely they are to do things you want them to do and the more likely, frankly, the ultimate worst outcome of war is.
In that context, I’ve opposed the TikTok ban…I do think it infringes on free speech. I think the [Supreme] Court got it wrong. I don’t think there’s a national security exception to the First Amendment. I think [the Court] listened to the First Amendment arguments and they just said, “Oh, well, if Congress says there’s a safety concern, we’ll listen to Congress.” But I don’t buy that, nor do I think they proved their case. I think they made an assertion that all your data is going to the Chinese Communist Party, but it’s more assertion than it is proof. There’s also an argument that many apps—Meta, Google, YouTube—they’re all scraping data and many of that’s for sale on the open market and can be bought by the Chinese anytime they wanted to, so there is that argument as well.
The reason of the repeal bill now is that many of the people who voted for this, now that [President] Donald Trump has changed his mind, they all seem to be changing their mind, too. There actually is a possibility that something like a repeal could pass. I don’t think it’s probable passing, but I want it to be out there—I want something [where] if you’re on TikTok or you’re a user or you’re some kind of influencer on there, it’s at least something to rally around to try to support.
Do you have any sense of y
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