Trump’s TikTok Reprieve Won’t Fix the Law’s Free Speech Problems
President Donald Trump is on the right track regarding TikTok. The app should remain available in America. Unfortunately, that is not as simple as pausing the clock via executive order.
TikTok is the first app to be impacted by a 2024 law prohibiting the “distribution, maintenance, or updating” of the app if it cannot find a government-approved buyer that separates it from its Chinese parent company ByteDance—but the terms of that law could be applied to other apps. And while the law names four countries as foreign adversaries, it leaves the potential to expand that label to other countries as well.
The requirement that TikTok be sold by parent company ByteDance was upheld by the Supreme Court after being approved by Congress and signed by former President Joe Biden. While millions of Americans are glad to have their favorite app back after it went dark in the U.S. for a period between January 18 and 19, an executive order extending the deadline does not resolve the long-term ramifications for speech and broader regulation of the tech industry.
While proponents of the bill will defend it as regulating a foreign company, the law’s burdens fall largely on American companies. Currently, new users can no longer download TikTok from app stores,
Article from Reason.com
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