Marin officials laud effort to constrain TikTok

Marin’s congressional representative and the county’s top education leader said they support newly approved federal legislation that could lead to a ban on TikTok.

The company that owns the popular social media platform will now have nine months to divest itself of its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face exclusion in U.S. app stores.

Proponents worry that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access the data of users that include an estimated 170 million Americans. One of them is U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman.

The San Rafael Democrat has described ByteDance as a Chinese government-owned company that has a pattern of “engaging in malign political activities” in other countries. He said he worried those practices could happen in the United States.

“That’s a problem not just for things like election interference, but also because TikTok is gathering all kinds of data on you and millions of other Americans every single day — your face, your voice, where you go, what you do,” Huffman said in an online video. “And we don’t want the Chinese government, which is an adversary of the United States, to be able to weaponize that data against you or our country.”

He could not be reached for comment on President Joe Biden’s signing of the bill on Wednesday.

The legislation has drawn accusations of censorship from the American Civil Liberties Union and the San Francisco-based nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. In a March 6 letter, they argued that the legislation would violate American users’ free speech rights.

“Jeopardizing access to the platform jeopardizes access to free expression,” the letter stated.

Last year, the Marin County Office of Education filed a federal lawsuit against social media companies, alleging that TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms have negatively affected students’ mental health. The office wants the companies to change their platform designs and create protections for young users.

John Carroll, Marin County schools superintendent, said that his office’s lawsuit focuses on mental health issues rather than national security. However, he said that the House’s action on the TikTok bill closely relates to his office’s concerns over how social media platforms influence users.

“The amoral profit motive that drives most of those companies is ethically suspect enough,” Carroll said. “The problem is even more concerning when authoritarian governments outside the U.S. can control the messaging platforms that have become such a major part of our students’ everyday lives.”

Dr. Matthew Willis, Marin County’s public health officer, said that measures like the TikTok bill are a step in the right direction.

“Studies are clear that anxiety levels among youth track with levels of engagement with social media, and that the industry isn’t very good at policing itself,” he said Wednesday. “Measures like this that mitigate social media access to younger minds are a step in the right direction. It’s reassuring to see leaders stepping in to tap the brakes on social media from a regulatory standpoint.”

The legislation was included in a $96 billion foreign aid package. Biden’s signature followed the Senate’s 78-18 vote on Tuesday to approve the aid package, and the House’s 352-65 vote of approval on Saturday.

Shou Chew, the chief executive officer of TikTok, condemned the new TikTok law soon after Biden signed it.

“It’s obviously a disappointing moment, but it does not need to be a defining one,” Chew said in a video statement. “It’s actually ironic because the freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom. TikTok gives everyday Americans a powerful way to be seen and heard — that’s why so many people have made TikTok a part of their daily lives.”

Chew said that his company is fighting for TikTok users’ rights in court.

“Rest assured, we are not going anywhere,” he said.