Sen. Marshall's statement on TikTok ban bill

Following the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act on Wednesday, Sen. Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-KS) released a statement in support of the bill, and suggested that he will be voting in favor of it when it gets to the Senate.

“My number one job in the Senate is to provide for the safety and security of Kansas families. That is why, as long as the CCP owns it, TikTok needs to be banned,” Senator Marshall said. “Americans always think the best of people, but we can’t underestimate China and its relentless war against America. Every data point gathered through TikTok, the CCP’s surveillance platform, can and will be used against us. This is a matter of national security, and I look forward to this bill coming to the Senate Floor quickly.”

The bill, which allows the government to grow bigger under the guise of “safety,” has received a lot of criticism. The legislation would force the sale of TikTok from ByteDance, a company that is backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), to a competitor. If the sale does not occur in a timely manner, TikTok would effectively be banned from the United States. The ban would be implemented through massive financial penalties on any app store that continues to provide the TikTok app. However, the broad language of the bill and potential outcomes could be more devastating than just this due to the bill not being specific to China or even TikTok.

In fact, any country the government decides is a “foreign adversary” could be penalized under this act at any time. It’s important to note that this is a subjective term, it’s literally just whoever Congress decides is a foreign adversary. This means if the far-left get into power, they could declare Israel a foreign adversary, or the right could decide to penalize Ukraine. More so, as previously mentioned, this bill doesn’t discriminate against TikTok alone.

According to the bill, the President will be given the power to ban not just apps but websites, likely due to the fact that TikTok is both a website and an app. On top of this, however, it’s going to be U.S. companies hurting from this bill, because it was so broadly written. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican representing District 4 in Kentucky had some really interesting tweets about this, calling the bill a “trojan horse.”

If you think this isn’t a Trojan horse and will only apply to TikTok and foreign-adversary social media companies, then contemplate why someone thought it was important to get a very specific exclusion for their internet based business written into the bill: pic.twitter.com/LnHsmEgtt9

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 12, 2024

Furthermore, if China was really desperate to get our data, this bill would not stop them from doing so. You can literally buy anyone’s data for an extremely cheap price. Just last year, NBC reported on a study by Duke University researchers that found they were able to purchase thousands of U.S. service members’ data for as little as 12 cents per person. So, sure, they could get our data through TikTok if we first choose to use TikTok, but on top of there being other cheap and easy ways, there isn’t even proof of them doing this, there have only been scary “what if” scenarios presented.

With over half the country—with an estimated 170 million Americans—using TikTok, the Cato Institute has written on this bill, suggesting it is the largest infringement on free speech ever seen in U.S. history.

“Beyond the pragmatic considerations, this bill—should it pass and should TikTok refuse to divest—would result in the largest removal of speech in US history, and by several orders of magnitude. Other notorious instances of government infringement affected far fewer people, from the two dozen writers sanctioned under the Alien and Sedition Acts to the several thousand readers who lost access to Communist newspapers because of postal service restrictions during the Second Red Scare. There is simply no precedent for the sheer quantity of speech involved.”

The bill had a total of 54 cosponsors including one from Kansas, Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-KS-2). The bill passed the House 352-65 with 197 Republicans and 155 Democrats voting in favor of the bill. A total of 15 Republicans and 50 Democrats voted against the bill. Another 7 Republicans and 7 Democrats were not there and did not vote and one Democrat was there but did not vote. All four representatives from the state of Kansas voted in favor of the bill.