Lawyer reveals risks of using TikTok with VPN if US imposes ban
This is such a dumb article. It’s right about the VPN thing, but the proposed law doesn’t make it illegal for users to access TikTok, it makes it illegal for TikTok to operate in the US and forces ISPs to block TikTok traffic. So the question that the article is asking is completely irrelevant.
“According to Elan, using a VPN to access TikTok, should the app get banned in the US, would be firmly against the law, and violators can expect to be punished.
“If there is a law saying, ‘You can’t do this,’ and you do this by using a VPN to circumvent the law, then you are in violation of the law,” he explained.”
We spoke with…a business litigator who focuses on high-value intellectual property disputes
Ok, so the appeal to authority of “we spoke to a lawyer” falls a little flat when it’s one whose practice has little to nothing to do with the topic on hand. Does he have precedent he can cite? Or text in the law itself outlining end user liabilities here?
(The answer is not in the article, so probably no)
If you are that obsessed with fucking tiktok then I don’t know what to tell you. Even if as the first commentor on this story pointed out, that they “spoke to a lawyer” the obsession, especially with folks going to another app is pretty dumb. We really need to get over this fear of missing out here in this country.
If this causes a large number of users to start using VPNs then the US created a big self-inflicted law enforcement problem. US law enforcement will no longer be able to monitor what users are up to.
So the whole point of VPNs is to make it difficult to figure out what the traffic from the user to the VPN endpoint is doing.
H O W, exactly, would the government get the evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt” that a given user was using VPN to access TikTok, as opposed to something else?
Because if this technology already exists and the government has it, VPNs are all useless already.
Hey Elan has a lot of high paid lawyers on staff that he never listens to.
i.e. – “If they hadn’t done what I told them not to do, they’d still be alive!”
As my father would say, I don’t even know what a Knick Knock is 
If people are posting videos of themselves on Tiktok it would be easy to see that. Looking at their phone would be another way. But it doesn’t matter, because there are no proposals to make it illegal to use TikTok.
I’d love to seem them find me… When i use mine i’m supposedly in various parts of western europe and the company keeps NOTHING to identify anyone so idk what the hell they’d even subpoena to find me. Not that i care about tik tok… just saying…
At least he/she offered a take.
fair that if you’re posting yourself, the evidence is prima facie.
but if you use a browser and a VPN to just view TikTok, how does the govt get the data beyond a reasonable doubt?
Assuming that you erase your browsing history, they could do forensic analysis on the PC. But the idea of going to the length to find if someone who used TikTok is absurd. Nobody is saying that it would be easy to prosecute someone for using TikTok. This lawyer is just saying that it would still be illegal.
The whole article is dumb though, because the proposed TikTok ban doesn’t make it illegal to use TikTok. It would force TikTok to stop operating in the US and force ISPs to block TikTok traffic.
just tell law enforcement we use the VPN to access porn