Banning TikTok was supposed to be a slam dunk.
In a Washington that is more divided than ever, one of the few sources of agreement is that TikTok, the world’s single most popular app, is bad. Very bad. So bad, in fact, that it should be banned. The Chinese short-video app recently had its day in front of Congress, where members of both parties were united in heaping abuse on its hapless Singaporean CEO Shou Zi Chew. TikTok should be doomed.
And yet, the process of banning it is hitting a big stumbling block: Hapless lawmaking. Republican Congressman chasing for a “win” against Big Tech have instead embarrassed themselves and exposed their base to long-term tyranny at the hands of the U.S. administrative state.
Banning TikTok ought to be simple, so naturally, it’s anything but. Instead, Congress is on the precipice of “stopping” TikTok by granting vague, sweeping regulatory authority to yet another branch of the federal government. This time, instead of the FBI, CIA, or DHS, Americans will learn to fear the omnipotent powers of the Department of Commerce.
The bill in question is called the “Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act,” or as it is mercifully abbreviated, the “RESTRICT Act.” The purpose of the RESTRICT Act is, essentially, to allow the Secretary of Commerce to blacklist any tech product, service, or company linked to a “national adversary” that the Secretary considers a threat. For anything banned under the act, a whole universe of “transactions” with them become illegal, and subject to harsh penalties.
Even the press release from Senators Mark Warner and John Thune bragging about the bill’s introduction hints at its underlying problems:
The RESTRICT Act establishes a risk-based process, tailored to the rapidly changing technology and threat environment, by directing the Department of Commerce to identify and mitigate foreign threats to information and communications technology products and services.
What’s a foreign threat? How do you mitigate it? How broad is “information and communications technology products and services?” The answer, when you dig into the details, is basically “whatever the Secretary of Commerce thinks they are.”
As Tucker Carlson highlighted on his program last week, while the RESTRICT Act is pitched as protecting Americans, it will actually make online censorship easier. It’s just that this censorship will be coming from Washington instead of Beijing....