FIRE opposes House bill empowering the president to ban TikTok

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression opposes H.R. 7521, which would grant the president a dangerous degree of power over speech platforms used by Americans.

H.R. 7521 empowers the president to declare that a website or app presents a national security threat if the platform offers basic communications features and has certain connections to a “foreign adversary country.” Upon this declaration, the platform’s owner must complete a divestiture or a “similar transaction” that the president finds adequate to mitigate the threat. If such a transaction does not occur within six months, the platform is banned from app stores in the United States. The bill specifically requires TikTok to complete this divestment process or be banned.

While FIRE is not in a position to evaluate the potential privacy and cybersecurity concerns presented by TikTok or other foreign-owned platforms, banning TikTok or other platforms used for expressive activity must be a last resort. Tens of millions of Americans use TikTok to share and consume information, news, ideas, political advocacy, and creative content, so all options for a divestiture must be exhausted before the government takes the unprecedented step of banning the platform.

We urge the Senate to reject H.R. 7521, and we suggest its supporters consider whether they want the next president — whoever that might be — to wield such power over Americans' ability to communicate online. 

Even where the cybersecurity threats presented by TikTok or other platforms are serious, the government must carefully tailor any legislative or executive action to address the specific threats while preventing overreach.

FIRE statement on efforts to ban TikTok

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Legislation that targets social media platforms for their moderation practices or their distribution of “propaganda” raises serious First Amendment concerns.

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H.R. 7521 does not meet this standard. Rather than targeting the bill at companies controlled by the identified “foreign adversary countries” — North Korea, Russia, Iran, and China — the actual text of the bill could cover American corporations with only tenuous or speculative connections to foreign entities. The bill does not provide any standards for determining which national security threats are adequate to justify the use of this extraordinary authority, and it does not require any other approvals within the executive branch before the president may declare a company a national security threat. The bill also does not define what suffices as an adequate divestiture or “similar transaction” to avoid a ban, nor does it require consultation with any particular executive branch agencies when deciding whether a company has adequately mitigated the threat.

In sum, H.R. 7521 would allow the president to effectively ban or force changes to widely used news, social media, or other communications platforms without significant checks or oversight. This is a dangerous power for the president to have over websites and apps that Americans use to exercise their First Amendment rights. The president may burden the rights of millions of Americans in order to address only minor or unproven security threats. Worse, the president could demand censorship of users or punish platforms for illegitimate reasons by offering pretextual national security concerns. And even if the president doesn’t act, the very existence of this authority will encourage platforms potentially subject to the bill to silence users and suppress content that could raise the president’s ire.

We urge the Senate to reject H.R. 7521, and we suggest its supporters consider whether they want the next president — whoever that might be — to wield such power over Americans' ability to communicate online.