FREEDOM ON THE NET 2023 The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence ban on TikTok, owned by the Chinese tech company ByteDance, citing potential threats to national security and the risk that the Chinese government could access Americans’ personal data. Montana became the first state to enact a law that, beginning in January 2024, forces companies like Apple and Google to prevent Montanans from downloading TikTok from their respective app stores. Since it was adopted in May 2023, the law has faced constitutional challenges. At the federal level, meanwhile, proposed bills would provide President Biden with the legal authority to ban TikTok nationwide. While the platform’s ownership by ByteDance raises serious human rights and national security concerns, a ban would undermine the 18 @freedomonthenet constitutional right to free speech for millions of Americans, and would almost certainly encourage other governments to limit access to specific social media platforms. Such a ban would also fail to address the underlying threats posed by TikTok, the tech sector’s broader data-collection ecosystem, and the multiple ways in which foreign governments and nonstate actors can access and exploit Americans’ information. A more comprehensive, effective, and rightsrespecting approach to these problems would include stronger regulatory oversight and new legislation to improve privacy protections, require platform transparency and risk assessments, and guard against weak data security practices. #FreedomOnTheNet