Hands off TikTok: Biden has shown us why government and social media shouldn't mix

The week has begun with the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments in a free speech case that highlights the dangers of the government interfering in private citizens’ speech – a huge First Amendment no-no. 

The Biden administration has had its hand slapped by lower courts for its efforts to coerce social media giants like X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook to silence or downplay speech it considered “misinformation” or “disinformation.” 

Some of this speech had to do with the heated debates over COVID-19, from its origins to lockdowns to masks to vaccines. The government wanted to control the conversation when the public needed more information – not less. 

And the speech the Biden administration didn’t like wasn’t limited to the pandemic. It also wanted to dampen discussions about President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and other issues it had a vested interest in. 

This case comes before the Supreme Court just as Congress is pushing bipartisan legislation that targets TikTok. The Biden administration’s efforts to influence private companies’ content moderation serves as a warning against government involvement in any of these platforms.  

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Is it about China – or political games?

Republicans and Democrats alike are concerned about the national security implications of having 170 million Americans using TikTok – an app that is owned by Chinese company ByteDance and thus influenced by the Chinese Community Party. 

The new legislation seeks to force ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States if it doesn’t do so within a specific time frame. It passed the U.S. House last week, and Biden has said that he'll sign it if it gets to his desk. 

The effort has brought together some odd coalitions. For instance, former House Speaker “tic-tac-toe” Nancy Pelosi, a staunch Democrat, and Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio are in support of the bill. 

And then you have former President Donald Trump on the side of progressive Squad members Reps. Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) in opposing it. 

This gets even more confusing when you consider the switcheroo that Trump and Biden have both done on the issue. As president, Trump had signed an executive order seeking to ban TikTok but was shot down by the courts. Biden ditched the order entirely when he became president. 

Now, Trump hates the idea and Biden loves it (even though Biden’s campaign has started a TikTok account to make the 81-year-old more “relatable” to young people).

There aren’t great explanations for these shifting stances other than it must seem politically advantageous for the respective parties. 

When it comes to speech, government should stay hands off

I firmly believe China is a threat. And for that reason, I have never been tempted to download TikTok on my phone. 

But millions of Americans have taken that risk, and many people use the platform to boost their businesses and express themselves in a variety of ways. 

They should have that right. 

Getting the government involved in determining what platforms are “OK” for us to use feels too much like what China itself does to its citizens in blocking wide swaths of the internet. 

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If this bill would become law, it’s almost certain it would face legal challenges, just as Trump did when he tried to ban TikTok. Last year, Montana attempted to prevent its residents from using TikTok and that legislation hit legal roadblocks, too. 

“There would be serious concerns about the impact that this might have on the speech rights of the users of TikTok,” Jennifer Huddleston, a technology policy research fellow at the Cato Institute, told me. “You potentially have the government foreclosing a venue for speech.”

If it’s going to limit speech in such a sweeping way, the government has a high bar to prove that its national security concerns are valid and that this would be the least restrictive means for limiting speech, Huddleston said. 

“You're going to have to show that there's not something else that could resolve those national security concerns, even if they are valid, that would have less of an impact on speech,” she said. 

The legislation is written in a vague way, giving the Biden administration – and future administrations – a lot of leeway to potentially limit other apps with any ties to a U.S. adversary. 

This should make all of us uncomfortable. It’s simply giving the government more power than it deserves to limit our speech. 

A better approach would be for the government to warn citizens about the potential risks of using TikTok or other apps, similar to issuing travel advisories to other countries. 

And as Biden and his administration have demonstrated, you can’t trust the government to act in citizens’ best interests.

It acts in its own.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques.