A number of Chinese laws require any company under the PRC’s jurisdiction to assist security services – whether that’s censoring content, sharing private data, or assisting with cyber or transnational repression campaigns against dissidents.
I have been incredibly vocal in criticizing U.S. tech companies over the years, and I have written bills that would reign in their bad practices. We absolutely need comprehensive privacy laws in the U.S., and I’ll continue to push for those, too.
MYTH: The RESTRICT Act criminalizes what you can say online. Fact: The RESTRICT Act is focused on foreign corporations, not on users. The 1st Amendment protects Americans’ right to share and receive information – and this bill doesn’t alter that.
The RESTRICT Act builds on a process – created under President Trump and supported by President Biden – that would allow the Secretary of Commerce to review certain transactions. What kind of transactions…?
The government is only able to review “covered transactions,” which means transactions involving a foreign adversary (China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran) or an entity based in those countries.
But it’s actually even more specific than that. The RESTRICT Act only has the power to mitigate extremely high risk actions – like sabotaging U.S. tech, catastrophically impacting infrastructure, or interfering in our federal elections.
Let me say it again: there are NO criminal penalties in this bill for your free speech – you’re even free to drag the RESTRICT Act if you want! I stand firmly with freedom of speech, and my bill doesn’t affect or influence what Americans can say in any way, shape or form.
This bill takes on big, systemic threats to our national security – not individual users.
MYTH: Senators don’t understand that people make their living on TikTok! Fact: I think there’s a lot of creativity happening on TikTok! I know influencers & other Americans rely on it. I’m also a former tech entrepreneur, and I wholeheartedly believe in the free marketplace.
But there’s a reason we’re all not on MySpace anymore – the internet adapts. I have total confidence that there will be apps out there that can facilitate the same communications as TikTok, without being beholden to an authoritarian, communist regime that endangers our security.
I also want to point out this legislation really isn’t unusual or overreaching on the global stage – plenty of countries have taken even more direct action against TikTok specifically.
TikTok is outright banned in India. It’s banned on government devices in Canada, the EU, the UK, Norway, New Zealand, and Belgium. We’re likely to see more countries follow suit soon.
@MarkWarner Show us where a 'free country' like the US is trying to send their citizens to prison and pay million dollar fines for using a VPN. You're a fraud. A sell-out. How do you sleep at night?
@MarkWarner America is not ‘plenty of others on the global stage’. Plus, It is a federal felony crime under 18 U.S.C. 242 to intentionally violate constitutional rights. Which your bill does
@MarkWarner Yes. Countries without a Constitution that guarantees individual freedoms and limits government power. This is Orwellian.
@MarkWarner Who cares? This is the United States dude. They do a lot of stuff differently in other countries and it's irrelevant to how you should be making policy.