US lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a bill to ban Chinese social media app TikTok in the country. The measure was announced by Republican Senator Marco Rubio and had the support of two federal deputies, Republican Mike Gallagher and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi.
In a press release, Rubio argued that the use of TikTok in American territory poses risks to national security.
“The federal government has yet to take a single significant action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok. This is not about creative videos – this is about an app that collects data from tens of millions of American children and adults every day.”
“We know it is used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know that it serves the People’s Republic of China. No more time to waste on meaningless dealings with a CCP puppet company [Partido
Comunista da China]🇧🇷 It’s time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok forever,” added Rubio.
ByteDance, owner of TikTok, has yet to comment on the matter.
Former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021) determined a ban on new app downloads in 2020, but the rule was challenged in court and never entered into force. Last year, the Republican president’s replacement, Joe Biden, revoked the executive order, which also covered the Chinese app WeChat.
In November, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a ban on the import or sale of equipment from five Chinese companies in the country.
The statement cited “unacceptable risk to national security” and noted that the measure covers equipment from Huawei, ZTE (telecommunications), Hytera (radio communicators and radio systems), Hangzhou Hikvision and Dahua (video surveillance), as well as their subsidiaries and affiliates.
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