We’ve repeatedly noted how the Republican quest to ban TikTok is both stupid and performative.
Stupid, in that banning TikTok doesn’t fix the deeper privacy rot caused by a corrupt Congress’ ongoing refusal to pass a privacy law or regulate data brokers (who do much worse, at much greater scale). Dumb, in that the “ban” in states like Montana was bypassed by students in all of five seconds simply by switching from campus Wi-Fi networks to cellular.
Of course that doesn’t mean the GOP’s obsession with TikTok isn’t harmful.
Back in July, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a lawsuit arguing that the Texas ban of TikTok on state-owned devices and at state institutions violates the First Amendment. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, also argued the blanket ban compromises academic freedom and impedes online research.
But in a new ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman shot down the lawsuit, claiming the ban was “a reasonable restriction on access to TikTok in light of Texas’s concerns” about issues like privacy and national security. He also argued that because employees could still use TikTok on their personal devices, it wasn’t technically an infringement of public employee speech:
“Texas’s TikTok ban is limiting the use of an app on state-provided devices and networks, which is not a blanket prohibition. Public university faculty—and all public employees—are free to use TikTok on their personal devices (as long as such devices are not used to access state networks). Therefore, the Court disagrees with Plaintiff’s characterization of the ban as falling under the category of public employee speech.”
More broadly, the GOP’s obsession with TikTok hasn’t fared particularly well in the courts. Earlier this month Montana’s TikTok ban was blocked by a judge for being fairly obviously unconstitutional. That was followed by a dismissal of a largely pointless lawsuit by Indiana against TikTok.
Lost in the press coverage and legal shuffle is the fact that the GOP’s assault on TikTok has little to actually do with national security or consumer privacy. This is the same party that foundationally opposes meaningful privacy laws or the regulation of data brokers (who routinely over-collect U.S. consumer data then sell it to foreign intelligence agencies). The party’s “bans” don’t even work.
Some of the GOP’s anger at TikTok is just xenophobic chum for the base. Some of it is being driven by Facebook lobbyists, who like to seed moral panics around DC in order to get Congress to ban a competitor they can’t seem to out-innovate. And some of it is simply part of the GOP’s broader information war; they don’t like the idea of a social media platform that’s harder to control and bully.
That’s not to say TikTok doesn’t present genuine privacy and national security concerns. This was, after all, a company that was caught spying on journalists. It’s just as terrible as every other giant company that prioritizes hoovering up and monetizing too much data with minimal concern for privacy and security.
But none of the GOP’s countless billable lawyer hours or cable news appearances has much to do with actual national security or privacy. If the GOP cared about either, they’d genuinely support things like privacy laws, data broker regulations, or efforts to combat corruption. They don’t; and the endless hyperventilation over TikTok is equal parts performative and pointlessly expensive.
