Opposite to claims on viral posts, TikTok customers received’t face jail time or steep fines in the event that they use a digital non-public community to entry the app after it’s banned.
President Joe Biden signed laws into legislation in late April that might power TikTok to be bought or be banned in america throughout the subsequent 9 months.
In Could, viral posts on X claimed TikTok customers will face legal penalties in the event that they use a digital non-public community (VPN) to entry the favored social media app if it’s banned.
“Utilizing VPNs to bypass banned apps, comparable to TikTok, is made a legal act underneath this invoice, and the penalty is a minimal imprisonment of 20 years and a minimal wonderful of $250,000,” a video shared in one of many viral posts claims.
A VPN is an encrypted connection over the Web from a tool to a community, based on Cisco. Many individuals use VPNs to cover their non-public data from hackers and to entry on-line content material that’s not out there of their space, comparable to to bypass nationwide bans.
THE QUESTION
May individuals who use VPNs to entry TikTok be punished with jail time and/or massive fines if the app is banned underneath a current legislation?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, individuals who use VPNs to entry TikTok is not going to be punished with jail time and/or massive fines if the app is banned underneath a current legislation.
WHAT WE FOUND
TikTok customers is not going to be punished with jail time and/or massive fines for utilizing a VPN to entry the favored social media app if it’s banned within the U.S.
The viral social posts are recirculating outdated claims made in a TikTok video from March 2023. That video talks a couple of completely different invoice that proposed banning TikTok, referred to as the RESTRICT Act. The RESTRICT Act was by no means signed into legislation.
The TikTok consumer within the RESTRICT Act video claimed the invoice would impose legal penalties on individuals who use a VPN to entry TikTok. It’s the identical video from the viral put up circulating on X that was posted on Could 7, 2024.
The “Proscribing the Emergence of Safety Threats that Threat Info and Communications Expertise Act,’’ or the ‘‘RESTRICT Act,” was launched within the Senate on March 7, 2023. It could have given the Secretary of Commerce broad authority to “determine, deter, disrupt, stop, prohibit, examine, or in any other case mitigate” any “transaction” by data, expertise, or communications firms which might be owned or could possibly be influenced by overseas adversaries.
We VERIFIED in April 2023, across the identical time the TikTok video first went viral, that the RESTRICT Act didn’t explicitly ban VPNs or impose legal penalties on individuals who use them, nor did the invoice’s textual content embody the phrases “digital non-public community” or “VPN.”
Nonetheless, some consultants we spoke to in regards to the RESTRICT Act mentioned the invoice’s broad language left room for doubt in regards to the individuals and kinds of expertise it could impression.
“Whereas the RESTRICT Act doesn’t explicitly outlaw the usage of VPNs, it’s drafted broadly sufficient to boost considerations that utilizing a VPN to entry TikTok or different providers restricted within the US underneath the Act may lead to extreme penalties,” Willmary Escoto, a U.S. coverage analyst for the nonprofit Entry Now, advised VERIFY in an electronic mail again in April 2023.
However the RESTRICT Act by no means made it out of committee, and it’s not the identical because the TikTok ban laws that grew to become legislation on April 24, 2024.
The TikTok ban legislation, which is called the “Defending People’ Knowledge from International Adversaries Act of 2024,” provides TikTok’s Chinese language-owned dad or mum firm, ByteDance, 9 months to promote the favored social media platform or be banned nationwide.
The legislation doesn’t criminalize TikTok customers, and a particular provision within the legislation’s textual content says that particular person TikTok customers can’t be prosecuted underneath the legislation. The laws additionally doesn’t embody the phrases “digital non-public community” or “VPN.”
Congress’ Choose Committee on the Chinese language Communist Social gathering (CCP), which sponsored the primary iteration of the legislation, additionally mentioned in a March press launch that the laws wouldn’t punish particular person social media customers.
“This invoice solely applies to particularly outlined social media apps topic to the management of overseas adversaries, as outlined by Congress,” the press launch says. “No enforcement motion may be taken in opposition to particular person customers of an impacted app.”
The legislation particularly targets social media purposes and web sites which might be managed by overseas adversaries of the U.S. that “pose an unacceptable danger to U.S. nationwide safety.” These overseas adversaries, that are outlined in Title 10 of the U.S. Code, embody Russia, Iran and North Korea, along with China.
On Could 7, TikTok and ByteDance filed a lawsuit in opposition to the federal authorities to dam the legislation that might ban the app within the U.S., saying it unfairly singles out the platform and is an unprecedented assault on free speech.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
Observe Us
Need one thing VERIFIED?
