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| - Analysis: US TikTok bill does not criminalize the use of VPN
The latest TikTok bill, which was merged into a foreign aid bill, was passed by the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden on April 24. According to CNN, TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, has 12 months to divest the popular app or face a ban. TikTok said it would contest the law in court.
[The following part was published on April 12]
On March 17, screenshots of an article on BelnCrypto, a cryptocurrency media outlet, with a headline that reads “VPN Users Risk 20-Year Jail Sentences in the US Under New RESTRICT Act,” began circulating online.
Many social media posts sharing the images claimed that using a VPN to access TikTok, if and when it is banned in the United States, could lead to 20 years in prison.
Similar posts were found across the internet on various platforms, including Facebook, Weibo (also here) and X, gaining over 10,000 likes, 960 comments and 680 shares altogether.
However, these social media posts in Chinese are misleading.
First, the latest TikTok bill, which was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in March, is not called “RESTRICT Act,” as indicated in the headline.
The “Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act” was drafted in March 2023, but it has not been passed in either chamber of the US Congress. This draft bill does not explicitly mention banning or criminalizing VPN access to TikTok.
Secondly, the latest bill is called, “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (H.R.7521).”
Although this so-called TikTok bill could force the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to divest from the company or face a ban in the U.S., the proposed law does not discuss users’ VPN access, either.
Besides, the bill has not yet been passed by the Senate as of this writing, a necessary legislative process to move forward. After the final approval by both the House and Senate, the bill will be presented to the president, who then has ten days to veto the final bill or sign it into law.
TikTok and security concerns
TikTok is a video-sharing app used by one-third of U.S. adults, according to the Pew Research Centre, and its popularity has grown faster than any other platform.
Its popularity in the U.S. has been accompanied by controversies and concerns over the platform’s foreign ownership — Chinese tech company ByteDance owns the app.
U.S. lawmakers have raised data security concerns alleging that the company shares American users’ data with Beijing.
TikTok has repeatedly denied the allegation, but it admitted that its employees, who were later fired, accessed user data to gather information about journalists in the U.S. in 2022.
Last year, TikTok executives also admitted that its employees in China accessed user data in Australia.
The RESTRICT Act in 2023
The RESTRICT Act is a draft bill introduced by Senator Mark Warner to “identify and mitigate foreign threats to information and communications technology (ICT) products and services (e.g., social media applications).”
Applications or services other than TikTok could also fall into the scope of this act as long as they are developed by a “potential adversary” country, according to Warner in an interview with Wired in March last year.
The RESTRICT Act proposes to give the U.S. Commerce Secretary Board power to regulate technology owned or controlled by a “foreign adversary” that poses an “undue or unacceptable risk” to national security.
It lists a provision of criminal penalties of up to $1 million in fines and up to 20 years of imprisonment in case of violating restrictions.
While the RESTRICT Act does not have any provision explicitly mentioning the use of VPN to access banned social media platforms, the language in the RESTRICT ACT was criticized for being “overboard, and could wind up making services like VPNs illegal.”
A U.S. digital rights group also raised concerns over the bill’s vague language, which, in their view, could result in greater restrictions, such as criminal penalties for accessing TikTok through VPN.
In response, Warner’s office told Newsweek that the bill would not apply to individuals.
It is “aimed at companies… that create systemic risks to the United States’ national security,” Warner’s communications director, Rachel Cohen, was quoted as saying (Kaspersky, Huawei and TikTok were mentioned as examples).
TikTok bill in 2024
The new bill that passed the House in March focuses on the ban and the change of ownership of TikTok or applications operated by ByteDance; however, it does not describe the consequences of using TikTok in the country if and when the app is banned.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, one of the bill’s proponents, argued that TikTok is free to operate in the U.S. under the legislation as long as it is not under China’s control.
A telecom analyst, Roger Entner, told AP News that even if the Act comes into effect, American users could use VPNs to bypass the local restrictions, adding it would be challenging for the government to control it.
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