Signal's president says the TikTok bill won't offer any meaningful privacy protection from China, but will further entrench the dominance of US social networks
Earlier this month, the United States House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act … Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to and @olaf@social.secret-wg.org X: @kevinbankston , @poettpetty , @ybenkler , @pstasiatech , @webdevlaw , @profwoodward , @mattcameronlane , @gracabi , @cryptotweetie , @rondeibert , @1br0wn , @halcyene , @lpeblog , @othernedwin , @jameeljaffer , @adamkovac , @mer__edith , @ambaonadventure , @j_e_brandt , @brianlfrye , @veenadubal , @billyperrigo , and @policytensor Mastodon: Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life@mas.to : A weird thing about the takes on the TikTok divestiture bill is how often say it doesn't protect privacy. Duh, it's a NATIONAL SECURITY issue. — Similarly the reason Grindr's Chinese owners were forced to sell was national security not privacy. — https://lpeproject.org/... Olaf Kolkman / @olaf@social.secret-wg.org : Meredith Whittaker on speech and platforms control. — What I think of when reading this is the Weimar republic. — https://lpeproject.org/... X: Kevin Bankston / @kevinbankston : “The right is fighting to take control of these platforms, while liberals and some on the left are fighting to expand vectors of platform control, without thinking hard enough about who will wield this power and who is likely to get hurt. We can't treat these factors as 'outside... Tawana Petty / @poettpetty : I was going to pull quotes that resonate with me, but there are too many. Please read this one for yourselves. Yochai Benkler / @ybenkler : Critical asymmetry: Republican will-to-power, aiming to shape public consciousness, while liberals aim to strengthen platforms' control of bad speech subject to US regulation, ignoring the near certainty of US authoritarian cycles in wielding that power. Paul Triolo / @pstasiatech : Very interesting perspective on TikTok, divestiture legislation, and social media... Social Media, Authoritarianism, and the World As It Is - LPE Project https://lpeproject.org/... Heather Burns / @webdevlaw : From. the. rooftops. [image] Alan Woodward / @profwoodward : I don't agree with everything @mer__edith says here but she makes many bloody good points. Picking your way through the confused debate(s) on tech, social media, foreign interference, etc is mind bending but this injects some needed realism. Please read. https://lpeproject.org/... Matthew Lane / @mattcameronlane : This is honestly one of the most important things you can read on the TikTok bill and the pitfalls in the direction tech legislation is heading generally. Gali Racabi / @gracabi : I agree that the US problem of free speech is too few restraints in the areas that really matter; states aren't perfect, corporations either, and bottlenecks will be assets to conquer. I just don't get how that leads to a clear stance about TikTok. the waters are as murky as ever @cryptotweetie : “ By giving the President — any President — the power to designate which platforms are “foreign adversary controlled,” this bill provides the executive with a powerful new tool to coerce tech companies and exert control over the information ecosystem that platforms shape. ”... @rondeibert : A must read on social media regulation and risks around U.S. information control from @mer__edith 👇 Social Media, Authoritarianism, and the World As It Is https://lpeproject.org/... Ian Brown / @1br0wn : Competing platforms+jurisdictions “vastly preferable to shuttling the entire world's information ecosystem and digital surveillance hubs under the sole jurisdiction of the United States” -@mer__edith 💯 https://lpeproject.org/... Matt Davies / @halcyene : This — from @mer__edith — is excellent not only on the TikTok ban, but on the unspoken assumptions that make working in “public policy” so uncomfortable at the present moment: https://lpeproject.org/... [image] @lpeblog : Today, @mer__edith uses the divide over recent TikTok legislation to reflect on a more fundamental question: how should we think about regulating social media platforms at a time of rising illiberalism in the United States? https://lpeproject.org/... Ned Whitman / @othernedwin : “No, the actual problem isn't tech qua tech. It's the fact that we live in a world of nation-states and massive multinational corporate actors that flex power akin to states. And in this world, information control and asymmetry are key tools for the expansion and exercise of such... Jameel Jaffer / @jameeljaffer : The most insightful thing I've read about the proposed TikTok ban. Highly recommend. https://lpeproject.org/... Adam Kovacevich / @adamkovac : “China and US aren't so different” equivalency is a recurring undercurrent among folks who oppose the TikTok bill ⤵️ No. China jails and disappears people for things they say online, and actively polices online speech to punish dissent. The US doesn't do that. [image] Meredith Whittaker / @mer__edith : 📢NEW FROM ME! On the TikTok ban, the danger of abandoning defense of speech to extremists, & how the liberal tendency to assume a just state “outside the scope of this paper” leads to confused law/policy that can exacerbate the problems platforms pose. https://lpeproject.org/... Amba Kak / @ambaonadventure : This essay is about much more that the Tik Tok bill and will make many of us that work on “policy” deeply uncomfortable. Read @mer__edith for (always) opening up hard conversations that it's much easier for many of us not to have https://lpeproject.org/... [image] James Brandt / @j_e_brandt : “It is dangerous to treat nation-states like home teams, without acknowledging that these forms are containers, whose function is to hold power over subjects, and that those wielding power from within these structures can do so benevolently, or with unspeakable brutality.” Brian L. Frye / @brianlfrye : Agreed. “Progressives against free speech” is an embarrassingly bad look. Not to mention painfully naive & dangerous. Veena Dubal / @veenadubal : This is the BEST analysis on the proposed Tik Tok ban that I have read. @mer__edith reminds us of something we desperately need to remember amidst rising authoritarianism around the world—we must be weary of ALL attempts to centralize power—in both corporations & nation states. Billy Perrigo / @billyperrigo : Stop what you're doing and read this right now. The most essential piece of tech criticism you'll read this year - vital work @policytensor : If there is a information challenge to democracy, it is not from deep fakes; it is from our corrupt media and political elites. And now they want to hand over unprecedented power to the next president, based on nothing more than racist Sinophobia: https://lpeproject.org/... [image]
Context & Ripple Effects
The House vote arrived amid a longer debate over whether foreign ownership of a major communications platform warrants a distinct remedy: related coverage casts the proposal as part of a U.S. tradition of restricting hostile-state control of communications platforms, while earlier analysis argued for a technology-neutral framework for regulating large platforms. Whittaker’s intervention sharpens the tension between a China-focused ownership measure and privacy or competition outcomes across the social-media market.
First-order effects
- The bill’s privacy rationale faces a prominent challenge from Signal’s president: changing TikTok’s ownership would not, in her view, materially address China-related privacy concerns.
- The critique reframes the immediate policy trade-off as one between restricting a foreign-controlled app and reinforcing the position of established U.S. social networks.
Second-order effects
- Supporters of the measure face pressure to explain why ownership-based restrictions produce privacy protections, rather than relying on a national-security rationale alone.
- If TikTok’s position is weakened, incumbent U.S. social platforms could gain engagement and advertiser demand without having to meet comparable privacy or competition obligations.
Third-order effects
- The dispute points to a durable governance choice: whether platform rules should be triggered by an owner’s nationality or applied consistently to data practices and market power across services.
- If foreign-adversary restrictions become the dominant tool, platform competition may be shaped more by geopolitical eligibility than by interface-neutral privacy and competition standards.
The trend: Platform governance is increasingly being contested as a choice between geopolitically targeted ownership controls and technology-neutral rules for privacy, speech, and market power.