Even if Tik-Tok is banned, rivals pose their own dangers to free speech

Few surprises emerged in the Supreme Court arguments over the Protecting Americans Act, which demands that ByteDance, the Chinese Communist Party-affiliated owner of TikTok, either divest from the social media platform or face a ban.

The case hinges on whether TikTok can convince Justices that such a mandate violates the First Amendment by forcing a foreign-controlled app to sell or shut down. As of Friday, they have not — and the Court has compelled Tik-Tok to be sold or shuttered this weekend.

Bipartisan skepticism voiced by Justices Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Ketanji Brown Jackson suggests TikTok’s odds of winning look as shaky as a viral dance routine.

This legislation, as noted by my colleague Ilya Shapiro, regulates foreign control of platforms, not the content they host. It’s an established mechanism to safeguard Americans from foreign manipulation. 

However, just because the anti-TikTok legislation is legal doesn’t necessarily make it wise. As we debate the app’s future, we must also grapple with an uncomfortable truth: despite its Chinese Communist ties, TikTok became an unlikely bastion of free speech during the 2024 election season — in sharp contrast to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

This is a reality that Meta and Alphabet, the tech giants behind these platforms, would prefer Americans forget.

Meta and Alphabet run the most obvious substitutes for TikTok, and despite Mark Zuckerberg’s recent reforms, both are famously censorship-happy.

Meta’s censorship empire deep-sixed the Hunter laptop story before colluding with the Biden administration to silence dissent and amplify viewpoints favorable to its corporate and political interests.

These days, Zuckerberg is changing his tune, deftly painting Meta — which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads — as “proudly American” and ending Meta’s error-prone fact-checking.

Encouragingly, he’s also playing nice with President-elect Donald Trump and emphasizing transparency. Alphabet, the creator of YouTube, engages in at least as much censorship as Meta used to do — including allegedly obscuring an interview between Trump and Joe Rogan back in October. Yet it appears disinclined to even rhetorically shift its policies.

Meanwhile, in 2024, TikTok emerged as a rare digital town square where political debates thrived. TikTok’s algorithm amplified everyone from the MAGA movement to Kamala Harris supporters. Users freely debated the border, foreign wars, and RFK Jr.’s health proposals.

This openness — ironically fostered by an app linked to an authoritarian regime — underscores the divide between Meta’s Orwellian content moderation and TikTok’s freer approach.

It’s a divide that also further sets Elon Musk’s X apart, potentially leaving it as the only platform in America with relatively unrestricted speech if TikTok shuts down.

To be clear, TikTok may or may not pose a national security risk. ByteDance’s access to vast amounts of American user data — ranging from geolocation to browsing habits — is a legitimate concern.

However, the US government has yet to show evidence of ByteDance actually using American data for nefarious purposes. The concern lies in the potential for the Chinese Communist Party to access and misuse the data. And this potential is very real.

That said, banning TikTok outright or forcing its sale would not address the systemic threats to free speech and data privacy present within American companies.

Unlike TikTok, Alphabet and Meta have entrenched themselves as gatekeepers of American political discourse, manipulating what citizens see and silencing dissent in ways that undermine the very fabric of the First Amendment. 

We cannot allow speculative concerns about China to blind us to authoritarian behavior by American corporations. Fortunately, key figures in the incoming Trump administration, with Vice President-elect J.D. Vance leading the charge, appear prepared to hold platforms accountable.

Alongside aggressive FTC antitrust enforcement, lawmakers should demand full transparency: publish platform content and moderation algorithms, release communications between platforms and government agencies, and give every user a fair shot to be heard and monetized. No more excuses.

Yes, the TikTok law may pass constitutional muster. But if lawmakers want to protect Americans online, they need to stop using TikTok as their scapegoat and start dismantling the domestic monopolies that have turned the internet into an extension of the deep state — starting with Meta and Alphabet.

The new administration and its congressional allies can start the process of illuminating the truth and preserving a free internet.

The real fight isn’t with a foreign app — it’s about reining in the deep-state collusive and unchecked power of Big Tech here at home.

Tim Rosenberger is a Fellow at the Manhattan Institute; Mimi St Johns is a Stanford-educated blockchain entrepreneur.