WASHINGTON—The Senate passed a foreign aid package late last night that includes a provision that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok. The provision requires  ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to divest in the app or face a federal ban. President Biden is expected to sign the bill. 

The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“This bill is unconstitutional. The First Amendment means that the government can’t restrict Americans’ access to ideas, information, or media from abroad without a very good reason for it—and no such reason exists here. Repackaging the government’s reasons for the ban in the language of ‘national security’ does not change the analysis. There’s no national security exception to the First Amendment, and creating such an exception would make the First Amendment a dead letter.”

The following can be attributed to Nadine Farid Johnson, policy director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“Congress should be concerned about platforms’ collection of Americans’ data, but this ban is not a solution. China and other foreign adversaries will still be able to purchase Americans’ sensitive data from data brokers on the open market. And they could still engage in disinformation campaigns using American-owned platforms. Lawmakers should be addressing the real problem, not undermining the First Amendment.”