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Burning Questions About the TikTok Ban, Answered

Maybe we should all get VPNs?

This ban stemmed from the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a federal law that gives the government power to bar foreign-owned apps if they post a national security risk. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle claimed that the Chinese government had the ability to mine Americans’ data from TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, and then deploy this information in alleged efforts to surveil U.S. users as well as peddle disinformation. But the justices sided with the government on January 17, writing in their decision that TikTok’s “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment.” So, what does this mean?

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