Pick two:
1. The United States should ban TikTok
2. The United States cannot ban TikTok without expanding capacity for overreach, surveillance, and censorship
3. The United States should not expand capacity for overreach, surveillance, and censorship
- Digital authoritarians pick 1 and 2 and reject 3; this is wicked.
- The starry-eyed dreamer picks 1 and 3 and rejects 2; this is silly and naive.
- The lover of liberty picks 2 and 3 and rejects 1; this is the way.
Well on 2, the app stores already can do that so is it totally silly/naive? One can dream.
Do you see the third option -- which actually seems like the most likely policy response from the government -- a forced sale of TikTok to a non-Chinese company, is equally authoritarian?
Not equally so, no. It might be slightly authoritarian, sure, but in a much less distressing and significant way (no long term implications for First Amendment protections if sustained, for example).
For what it's worth, I don't think a ban would survive a court challenge on First Amendment grounds. Like I rate the chances that such a law doesn't get struck down at near zero. It's hard to imagine the courts going through the intellectual contortions that would be necessary.
