US lawmakers push for nationwide TikTok ban

US lawmakers say TikTok represents a major national security threat.

Senator Josh Hawley and Senator Ken Buck announced the “No TikTok on American Devices Act” on January 25, hoping to build on a law that had previously banned the app from some devices. government.

“TikTok poses a threat to all Americans who have the app on their devices. It opens the door for China to access Americans’ personal information, keystrokes, and location through hacking. collect data,” Hawley said. “Banning TikTok on government devices is a step in the right direction, but now is the time to ban it nationally to protect the American people.”

The bill would invoke the Biden administration under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law that allows the White House to intervene in commerce during a national emergency. U.S. entities that continue to do business with ByteDance will be subject to penalties under the proposed law.

Senator Josh Hawley. (Photo: Bloomberg)

TikTok spokesman Brooke Oberwetter criticized the bill, saying the law “needs a piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like privacy” data, privacy and online harms”.

Mr Oberwetter added: “We hope that (Mr Hawley) will focus his energies on trying to tackle those problems holistically, rather than assuming that banning a single service will solve them. get any issues he’s concerned about or make the American people safer.”

In addition to banning transactions with ByteDance and other entities affiliated with TikTok, the new bill also requires US intelligence to compile a report on “the national security threat posed by TikTok”. The report will focus on whether the Chinese government can use the app to access US data, especially for “intelligence or military purposes”, and outline any “efforts persistent” by Beijing to monitor or manipulate American citizens online.

Senator Hawley led a group of lawmakers, mostly Republicans, who are strong critics of TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance. Mr Hawley has spearheaded efforts to ban TikTok on some public devices by the end of 2022, which has received bipartisan support, but thinks the measure has not gone far enough.

According to RT