Countries have the right to ban foreign adversaries. US companies are a different problem with different solutions.
This is the same logic that China uses to ban all western apps. Fortunately in the west, countries don't have rights, people do, and citizens generally have the right to run whatever software they want on the hardware devices they own. Governments that violate such rights get challenged in court.
Kinder Surprise were banned due to the letter of the 1938 FFDCA law as "non-nutritive object".
There's usually a regulatory reason, such as homologation on automobiles. There are some protectionist laws around types of automobiles that can be imported.
Fortunately this isn't a restriction on citizens.
Instead, is a law regulating businesses.
We have all sorts of laws, regulating businesses, all the time.
For example, very recently there was a ruling that allowed California to have food regulations for pork sold to its residents.
Do you think that this food regulation is some sort of huge infringement on citizen rights?
Because it isn't much different than other regulations that you are complaining about.
Well, it does if you think that TikTok is a national security threat.
> If you genuinely believe that TikTok should not be available to anyone
This statement of yours just means that you can't argue against the actual point, and instead have to make up a new one to attack, instead of the actual stated position.
The actual stated position is that we put regulations on businesses all the time.
And it is better to do that, than enforcement on individuals.
The reasons why it is better to do completely standard, and normal business regulations, is because if enforcement was on individuals instead, it would have to involve draconian things like checking everyone's phones all the time.
Nah. There is no need to do that. App store regulations are perfectly fine instead, and there is no need to defend some absurd position, that nobody is arguing, like that everyone's phones should be investigated by the government.
And this is no different than when California puts laws on pork businesses.
Except it doesn't. It's just that apps are required to follow local laws, and many companies - like Google - don't want to, because their entire business is exploiting users' privacy.
(edit - oops, see correction below) There's nothing in this law that would unban TikTok if its ownership were transferred to a US corporation.
States also can't regulate interstate trade, which I believe trying to penalize Apple and Google would constitute, since neither has a office in Montana.
> Section 4. Contingent voidness. [This act] is void if tiktok is acquired by or sold to a company that is not incorporated in any other country designated as a foreign adversary in 15 C.F.R. 7.4 at the time tiktok is sold or acquired.
If TikTok is transferred to a company not owned by China the act goes away.
So they could just do that, then reacquire the company and this law vanishes in a puff of logic.