Vinod Khosla, founder of venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, has this to say about bills that would ban TikTok or force its parent company to sell its U.S. operations: Even if it were possible to argue that this bill falls under the First Amendment, there is legal precedent for doing so. In 1981, Haig v. Agee established that there are circumstances in which the government can lawfully violate an individual's First Amendment rights when necessary to protect national security and prevent serious harm. TikTok and the AI that can be communicated through TikTok are a national and homeland security issue and meet these standards.
If passed, the bill would give the president the power to force the sale of foreign-owned social media companies if U.S. intelligence agencies deem them a national security threat. This wider scope should protect against the objection that this is an achievement bill. Similar language helped protect de facto bans on Huawei and Kaspersky. When it comes to TikTok's value as a boon to consumers and businesses, there are plenty of companies that could soon replace TikTok. After India banned TikTok in 2020 amid geopolitical tensions between Beijing and New Delhi, services like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, MXTakaTak, and Cingari filled the void.
Few people understand that TikTok is not available in China. Instead, Chinese consumers use Douyin, a sister app that features educational and patriotic videos, with total usage time limited to 40 minutes per day. Spinach is for China's children, and fentanyl, another major Chinese export, is for our children. To make matters worse, TikTok is programmable fentanyl, and its effects are under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.