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Three US legislators, led by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, have introduced a new bill that seeks to ban TikTok from operating in the United States.
The proposal, written by Rubio along with Congressmen Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), is just the latest US policy move against the Chinese-owned video-sharing app, which has long been subject to skepticism. about its ability to protect users’ personal data from the Chinese government.
The accounthosted on Senator Rubio’s website, states that it is intended to “protect Americans from the threat posed by certain foreign adversaries using current or potential future social media companies that control those foreign adversaries to monitor Americans, sensitive information about Americans to learn or spread to influence campaigns, propaganda and censorship.”
Rubio’s bill follows legislation in Republican-led states such as Maryland and Utah to stop using TikTok on state-owned devices. Previously, former President Donald Trump proposed a ban on TikTok in 2020, citing national security concerns. Among other things, he alleged that the Chinese app could be used for nefarious purposes by the Chinese government, and issued an executive order directing the Ministry of Commerce to develop a plan to ban the app. However, Trump’s ban fell through and the issue was resolved through a deal in which parent company ByteDance agreed to divest its US operations to a US company.
Senator Rubio said the following in a pronunciation on his website:
The federal government has yet to take any meaningful action to protect US users from the TikTok threat. This isn’t about creative videos – this is about an app that collects data on 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 corresponds to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to be wasted in pointless negotiations with a CCP puppet society. It’s time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.
In his report on the bill, CNN quoted TikTok spokesperson Hilary McQuade as saying in a statement: “It is troubling that … some members of Congress have decided to push for a politically motivated ban that will do nothing to protect the national security of the United States.” States.”
As CNN points out, the State Department, military, and Department of Homeland Security don’t allow TikTok on their devices.
TikTok insists it does not share user data with the Chinese government, claiming that a team of US employees are responsible for China’s access to US user data.
