On Tuesday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a statement explaining that he has introduced a bipartisan bill that would ban TikTok across the country. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) introduced similar legislation as part of the legislative process in the House of Representatives.
In a Washington Post article, Rubio and Gallagher announced their plans to finally be rid of the social media platform. “TikTok offers the CCP a unique ability to monitor more than one billion users worldwide, including nearly two-thirds of American teenagers,” the pair wrote. “Unless TikTok and its algorithm can be separated from Beijing, the app’s use in the United States will continue to jeopardize our country’s safety and pave the way for a Chinese-influenced tech landscape here.”
As a result of Chinese law, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, must make the app’s data available to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Everyone from the FBI Director to the Federal Communications Commission to cybersecurity experts expressed concern that TikTok could be used to spy on Americans and collect sensitive information about them.
BREAKING: Republicans have introduced legislation to ban TikTok from operating in the U.S. pic.twitter.com/xUKcb1G1o3
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) December 13, 2022
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) protects Americans by banning social media transactions from China, Russia, and several other foreign countries.
Gallagher calls TikTok “digital fentanyl that is addicting Americans” and endangering national security by manipulating opinion and influence. Americans are addicted to TikTok. It collects data from them and censors their news.
“Allowing the app to continue to operate in the U.S. would be like allowing the U.S.S.R. 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,” Gallagher said.
A requirement under Chinese law states ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, must open all its data and all the technology it possesses to the Chinese Communist Party.
