Both America’s political camps agree that TikTok is troubling
Hindustan Times“Abusing state power to suppress foreign companies”. Politicians in Washington are considering two options that China’s government has long embraced for American companies: curbing TikTok’s freedom to operate, or an outright ban. Many politicians think a sale of TikTok to an American company rather than an outright ban is most politically palatable, but recent reports suggest that China would rather shut down TikTok than allow its sale. One way round this could be to add TikTok to the Commerce Department’s “Entity List”, a sanctions list, which would prevent platforms from hosting the app and would probably withstand a First Amendment challenge. “A lot of people are going to talk big, but nobody’s going to have the courage” to ban TikTok, says Nazak Nikakhtar, a lawyer at Wiley who previously worked for the Commerce Department.