The S.686 - RESTRICT Act  may be a vital safeguard to Americans. Intelligence gathering along with AI is a very real growing threat that can allow foreign adversaries to exploit deep fakes and advanced social engineering to sway elections and popular opinions.

China law changed in 2017 - now it mandates the CCP gets access to anything in any Chinese company. The TikTok concern is not only an American concern. Three years ago, India banned it outright." Also, RESTRICT doe not apply to individuals .

The use of social media in combination with social engineering and psycological warfare cannot be underestimated. Social media is so deeply embedded in people’s lives and so unregulated, trusted, and targetable that these platforms are irresitable targets by political operatives.

“Social media manipulation of public opinion is a growing threat to democracies around the world, according to the 2020 media manipulation survey from the Oxford Internet Institute, which found evidence in every one of the 80+ countries surveyed”

Foreign advesaries will no doubt use the power of AI deepfakes to skew US elections to their favor or even to de-stabilize it.

Even so, some American companies do not want RESTRICT because of the short-term money making opportunity possible in that market. Others may claim it infringes on free speech but laws against yelling fire in a crowded theater do too.