Good evening,

My name is __________ and I am a constituent and voter in your District, and a registered member of the Democratic Party, reaching out regarding my concern over a potential TikTok ban.

I would like to let you know that if Congressperson _________ supports the ban on TikTok, I will spend the upcoming election cycle volunteering and fundraising for your opponent in the primary.

I deeply encourage my Congressperson to vote against both H.R. 7521, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, and H.R. 7520, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024, as these efforts are reiteration of the baseless arguments we heard in 2023. The embarrassing display of under-education of our elected officials regarding social media and technology in general during the 2023 Congressional hearings regarding a TikTok further solidified my stance against this action. Further, those hearings have not convinced me in any way that TikTok is any more of a threat to American data security than any other social media platform. First, data from American TikTok users is managed by Oracle on American soil--Oracle also hosts data from dozens of other platforms, from Meta to EPIC, an electronic health record data system. If we cannot trust Oracle to protect our TikTok data, why can we trust it to protect our EPIC-based private health information? Further, it has been made clear that other social media platforms, including Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) are actively selling, to foreign actors, the data they have lobbied Congress to believe is at risk by TikTok.

TikTok has become a community for me. During the pandemic, I became an active member of BookTok, which encouraged me to engage in reading for the first time in nearly a decade. I made countless friends, gained a small following, and felt truly engaged with people from across the world over something we loved. Others have learned about political processes, learned about individuals who live a different lifestyle than they do, learned languages, exchanged recipes, created restaurant reviews, started and supported small businesses, and so much more. This is a platform of togetherness, and to upend that over false claims of data privacy issues would be simply unAmerican. The implications for free speech would be far reaching, opening the door for future Executive administrations and Congresses to limit what can be said on the internet and how it can be said without proper checks and balances.

During the hearing, we constantly heard fear-mongering about the Chinese government, and yet we are on our own path to government censorship in the same step.

I urge Congressperson _______ to be openly opposed to and vote against both H.R. 7521, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, and H.R. 7520, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024. If they do not, I will spend the next election cycle volunteering for and donating money to their opponent. I agree with many of the Congressperson’s political viewpoints, and I hope they stay true to their commitment to free speech by voting against any proposed ban.

Thank you for your time.