Headline RoundupMarch 17th, 2023

If ByteDance Refuses to Sell, Should Biden Ban TikTok in the US?

Summary from the AllSides News Team

The Biden Administration is pressuring ByteDance, the Chinese owners of the popular app TikTok, to sell the company or potentially be banned in the United States. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of Senators introduced the “Restrict Act,” which would “authorize the Secretary of Commerce to review and prohibit certain transactions between persons in the United States and foreign adversaries,” granting the power to ban TikTok.

Anti-Ban: An opinion piece in the Washington Post argued banning TikTok would not only be an ineffective way of combating propaganda, but also an “entirely un-American, undemocratic and inappropriate response to an unproven risk that the Chinese-owned platform will share users’ data with Beijing for nefarious purposes.” In January, a piece in Reason (Lean Right Bias) objected to a ban on the grounds of the first amendment, stating, “shutting it down would silence the speech of 94 million U.S. users, none of whom are in China or Chinese citizens.”

Pro-Ban: An opinion article in Newsweek (Center Bias) called for a ban on TikTok, citing security concerns and comparing the application to addictive substances, determining, “the aim of the Chinese Communist Party is not simply to gather information through TikTok, but to disadvantage America by harming our minds.”

Anti-TikTok: The New York Post Editorial Board stopped short of supporting a ban on the app, but outlined potential dangers for children using the app and called for action by parents “before a whole generation is lost.”

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