The impact of this legislation isn’t entirely clear yet, but what is clear: whether TikTok is banned or sold to new owners, millions of people in the U.S. will no longer be able to get information and communicate with each other as they presently do.

Selection of quotes:

This is despite the fact that it has been well-established law for almost 60 years that U.S. people have a First Amendment right to receive foreign propaganda.

The law limits liability to intermediaries—entities that “provide services to distribute, maintain, or update” TikTok by means of a marketplace, or that provide internet hosting services to enable the app’s distribution, maintenance, or updating. The law also makes intermediaries responsible for its implementation.

The law explicitly denies to the Attorney General the authority to enforce it against an individual user of a foreign adversary controlled application, so users themselves cannot be held liable for continuing to use the application, if they can access it.

Enacting this legislation has undermined this long standing, democratic principle. It has also undermined the U.S. government’s moral authority to call out other nations for when they shut down internet access or ban social media apps and other online communications tools.

Our lawmakers should work to protect data privacy, but this was the wrong approach. They should prevent any company—regardless of where it is based—from collecting massive amounts of our detailed personal data, which is then made available to data brokers, U.S. government agencies, and even foreign adversaries.

Thoughts?