Will Philippines’ proposed TikTok ban address concerns over China or curb free speech?

The proposed law will empower the president to ban apps that could be used by ‘foreign adversaries’ to threaten national security

An academic says she is against the TikTok bill as it could open a Pandora’s box of other bans that violate freedom of speech

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Published: 8:40pm, 24 May 2024

A proposed law to ban TikTok in the Philippines has sparked a heated debate on whether targeting the popular video-sharing application would address national security concerns or curb freedom of expression.

On Thursday, House deputy majority leader Bienvenido Abante filed a bill proposing a law – or An Act Regulating Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications – that would empower the president to identify countries that are “foreign adversaries of the Philippines” and impose a ban on digital applications that such adversaries could use to “infiltrate” and threaten national security.

Abante’s bill defines a foreign adversary-controlled application as any technology application operated by a company controlled by a foreign adversary.

In the explanatory note of the bill, Abante said “lawmakers and regulators in the West have increasingly expressed concern that TikTok and its [Beijing-based] parent company ByteDance may put sensitive user data, like location information, into the hands of the Chinese government. They have pointed to laws that allow the Chinese government to secretly demand data from Chinese companies and citizens for intelligence-gathering operations.

“China could therefore use TikTok’s content recommendations to fuel misinformation, a concern that has escalated in the United States and led to the passage of a law last year banning TikTok in the US.”

The congressman representing the capital city of Manila noted that India had already banned TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps, “claiming in part that they were secretly transmitting users’ data to foreign servers”.