A bipartisan group of members of Congress put forward legislation on Tuesday that would ban TikTok from the United States due to the inherent security risk that comes with its close ties to the Chinese government.
The bill was introduced by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), with the intent to protect the privacy of American citizens from apps under the influence of foreign governments of concern.
The Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act) would “protect Americans by blocking and prohibiting all transactions from TikTok and any other social media company in, or under the influence of, China,” the lawmakers said in a statement.
Noting that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is required by Chinese law to make the app’s data available to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the director of the FBI, FCC commissioners and cybersecurity experts have warned of the risk TikTok poses to American users.
“TikTok is digital fentanyl that’s addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news. It’s also an increasingly powerful media company that’s owned by ByteDance, which ultimately reports to the Chinese Communist Party – America’s foremost adversary," Gallagher said.
"Allowing the app to continue to operate in the US would be like allowing the USSR to buy up the New York Times, Washington Post, and major broadcast networks during the Cold War. No country with even a passing interest in its own security would allow this to happen, which is why it’s time to ban TikTok and any other CCP-controlled app before it’s too late.”
Rubio blasted the US government for having “yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok.”
“This isn’t about creative videos – this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,” he said. “We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.”
In November, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the commission, who previously urged Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, called on the US government to ban the video sharing app.
“I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban,” Carr said.
He added that he didn’t see any other viable solutions.
“[There isn’t] a world in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the [Chinese Communist Party],” he said.