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While the Supreme Court continues to consider the constitutionality of the TikTok ban, it is clear that TikTok presents serious and unique national security and human rights concerns. The platform’s parent company, ByteDance, is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has a record of coercing the private sector into conducting censorship and surveillance at home and abroad. The risks of TikTok being exploited by the CCP for malign purposes—for instance, to access personal data to track journalists or shape the information environment in the United States in the event of a national crisis—are very real and need to be taken seriously.

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A better approach to protecting rights and security would be to adopt legislation that strengthens data privacy, platform transparency, and cybersecurity. This would force TikTok to operate more responsibly and better protect Americans’ data, while shedding light on the influence that ByteDance and the CCP have over the platform. This approach would also help address challenges raised by other social media platforms, including those with similar ties to authoritarian states.

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