NEW YORK—Tomorrow, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. This comes in the midst of ongoing efforts by lawmakers across the aisle and by the Biden administration to ban the app in the U.S., citing national security and privacy concerns.

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

“The First Amendment protects Americans’ right to access social media platforms of their choice. To justify a TikTok ban, the government would have to demonstrate that privacy and security concerns can’t be addressed in narrower ways. The government hasn’t demonstrated this, and we doubt it could. Restricting access to a speech platform that is used by millions of Americans every day would set a dangerous precedent for regulating our digital public sphere more broadly. Banning or restricting access to social media is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes, and we should be very wary about giving the U.S. government that kind of power.”

For more information, contact Adriana Lamirande, [email protected]