A Fear of Ideas? Social Media, Foreign Influence, and National Security in a New Era of Great-Power Competition

The recent spate of legal restrictions on the use of TikTok and other foreign-controlled social media applications highlight concerns over personal data collection, but also how fears over the potential foreign influence of ideas from adversarial foreign governments—whether by propaganda, censorship, or disinformation—have re-emerged in the national security debate. Yet there are concerns that this new era of great power competition will be the basis for justifying overreaching speech regulations that hinder access to information and ideas under the aegis of national security. This work attempts to examine the recent enactment of speech restrictions or bans on foreign-controlled applications within the larger political context of great power competition, primarily between the U.S. and China. It explores how the current political context is perhaps fueling a redux of the nationalist, anti-Communist disposition of the past, including the enactment of laws and political action—reminiscent of the Cold War—under the veneer of national security.

It then attempts to glean the purposes of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACAA) (i.e., TikTok ban) by examining the Act, the 2023 congressional report on the PAFACAA, the 2023 congressional hearing on TikTok, and the public statements of congressional members. Finally, this paper argues that a key purpose of the Act is to restrict content-based speech in violation of the First Amendment, as it restricts speech content that a foreign actor could potentially promote, including ideas and viewpoints that Americans have the right to receive.