The bill, RESTRICT Act, led by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), would give the administration the power to review and potentially ban services without solely targeting the controversial video app, the way GOP-backed bills do.
Digital rights groups, industry officials and privacy experts are sounding the alarm that the RESTRICT Act poses concerns that could limit Americans' freedom online. Critics argue the proposal is overly broad about what companies it would target and who would be on the receiving end of enforcement.
"There's a risk of unintended targets. There could be consequences for businesses or individuals that inadvertently get swept up in this," said Darrell West, a senior fellow with the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.
A chief concern raised by critics of the bill is that individuals who seek to use TikTok or any service banned under the rules it lays out would be punished.
The digital rights groups Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future, along with the ACLU, have all come out against the proposal. The groups are among critics that argue the bill could potentially punish individuals that seek to gain access to banned apps, possibly through VPNs, or virtual private networks.
Warner has pushed back strongly on that criticism.
"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," Warner tweeted.
A VPN lets users search online without having an internet service provider or other third parties see what sites they visit or their data. By using a VPN, a user can also access sites that are banned, and is among the technical limitations of enforcing a TikTok ban. It is one way users in other countries that have banned access social media sites have been able to keep using those platforms.
The legislation does not explicitly ban the use of a VPN, but the broad scope of the bill could lead to it being interpreted that way, said Kayla Williams, chief information security officer at Devo, a cloud-native security analytics platform.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
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