Bob Sullivan

In the age where the U.S. House of Representatives can’t really do anything, it has voted to ban TikTok in its current ownership structure. Color me unimpressed, and more than a bit concerned. I’d say the fact that Congress’ lower house was able to pass the legislation should give everyone pause.

Of course TikTok poses a national risk. So do other platforms, which is why it’s time for Congress to pass comprehensive privacy and national security legislation that forces all platforms to handle personal data with care. But that’s…hard.  Grandstanding that you’ve been tough on TikTok is easy, so that’s what we’re getting.

TikTok’s owner, Bytedance, has been given the choice to divest itself from the popular social media service. I hope you’ll think it’s strange that Congress can force such a sale …. of a single company. But setting that aside for the moment, it’s hard to imagine that doing so will solve the problem everyone seems to agree exists — that the Chinese government can access TikTok’s intimate data about its users.  Would a the sale really stop that? And what of China’s ability to buy such data from any one of hundreds of data brokers in the U.S. who are willing to sell such information to the highest foreign bidder? (Duke University has tested this theory.)

And as for Chinese ownership, it must be asked, why stop with TikTok? Anyone who’s been online in the past six months has seen the near-ubiquitous ads for a shopping service named Temu and its “shop like a billionaire” tagline. That’s because this Chinese-owned firm has spent billions of dollars advertising with companies like Meta/Facebook.  But Temu has been sued for, essentially, loading its software up with spyware.  You should read this analysis for yourself, but here’s a highlight: “The app has hidden functions that allow for extensive data exfiltration unbeknown to users, potentially giving bad actors full access to almost all data on customers’ mobile devices.”

A well-written law would stop a company from doing what Temu is (accused of) doing before it starts, or make it very easy to shut it down. Instead, Congress is doing something so arbitrary that it has made TikTok into a sympathetic character, which would have seemed impossible a few months ago.

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail in the Senate, and a better law can emerge from this rare moment of focus on data privacy. If not, I fear this legislation could delay passage of a real, comprehensive federal privacy law.   Congress could mistakenly believe it has solved a problem and turn its meager attention in other directions; and the law could backfire so badly that lobbyists could point to it for years as proof no law should ever be passed that limits big tech’s powers.

I found Alex Stamos’ appearances on NBC networks to be informative; you can watch them here.