GUEST EDITORIAL: Banning TikTok enables online censorship

“It’s particularly ironic that the Supreme Court is upholding the ban on national security grounds when both the incoming and outgoing presidents are backtracking from their prior support of the ban. Are they implying that neither administration cares about national security? It appears this ban was a political stunt that the Biden administration didn’t expect would ever become law. But now it has, and it might not even be enforced. All we might be left with at the end of the day is a Supreme Court opinion that weakens First Amendment freedoms on the internet.

The Supreme Court cites China’s law requiring Chinese companies to cooperate with government surveillance efforts, but omits that the U.S. Congress passed a law just last year allowing the government to involuntarily enlist U.S. businesses to spy on its behalf. This opinion practically begs foreign governments to ban American apps for the same reasons America banned TikTok. If we don’t like China’s practices on surveillance and censorship we should stop adopting them back home.”