Forcing the sale of TikTok would be no different than making publishers of a newspaper sell to owners approved by the government

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As popular as TikTok is, the China-based video sharing service is one that many Americans love to hate. In truth, there are reasons to be leery of social media, and of any service vulnerable to the Chinese government in particular. But there are also huge risks in giving the United States government the power to shutter media operations or force their sale to new owners favored by politicians.

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Lawmakers are currently considering a bill, H.R. 7521, to force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the social media service to new owners or else bar it from the U.S. TikTok poses “key national security concerns” because it “collects tremendous amounts of sensitive data,” U.S. Justice Department officials reportedly told members of Congress in a classified briefing last month. A recent survey by The Economist and YouGov found that 46 per cent of adults under 30 use TikTok (though 49 per cent of respondents favoured a ban on the platform).

Since all Chinese businesses operate at the pleasure of the country’s communist government, that means the state may have access to that information. However, when pressed on the issue, government officials admit off-record that the threat is all potential; they worry about the company being weaponized by the Chinese government, but there’s no proof that anything nefarious has actually happened. The service’s reach into the lives of Americans unsettles them when they imagine Chinese officials using its power for their own purposes.

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