Opinion: Banning TikTok stifles internet innovation and freedom

The popularity of TikTok, a Chinese-owned short-form video-sharing app, has provoked concerns among American policymakers and proposals to ban the platform. Although data exfiltration concerns are hard to dispel, the costs of banning TikTok far outweigh any benefits to national security.

TikTok isn’t a particularly unique or valuable source of American data, but it is a potent distributor of American culture. Banning TikTok would quash the voices of Americans who favor the platform and undermine the open internet that has served America so well.

Concerns about TikTok fall into two categories. Critics fear that TikTok’s algorithm could be manipulated to serve Chinese interests and that user data could be collected and misused by the Chinese Communist Party. The first concern is ably addressed by TikTok’s Project Texas, a deal with Oracle to host TikTok in America on Oracle servers, where its algorithm can be audited. The second is harder to dispel.

Like other apps, TikTok collects user information such as location and stored media. TikTok needs this data to host and serve user speech, but it can be misused. Unlike other apps, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has its headquarters in China, where it is subject to China’s National Intelligence Law. Under the law, China can require its citizens and corporations to provide data relevant to state intelligence work.

There isn’t any evidence that TikTok is spying for the CCP. ByteDance’s only demonstrable misuse of user data was to track employees leaking information to journalists. But data is leaky, and employee access is hard to police. Under the National Intelligence Law, there is always a risk that ByteDance will be compelled to share TikTok user data with the CCP.

Further, there is little reason to believe TikTok is a unique intelligence goldmine. Other apps collect similar information, TikTok is not the only Chinese app used by Americans, and much of the more sensitive information TikTok collects, such as user location, can be purchased from unscrupulous data brokers. Absent broader data protections, banning TikTok at best forces China to buy Americans’ data instead of getting it for free.

To get vital data, China has repeatedly…