TikTok has surged in popularity in recent years…
Critics of the social media app cite China’s 2017 national security law… which states that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work.”
Moreover, Senate Republicans are concerned about TikTok and want to ban the app. They say the app is a security risk and should be banned in the United States.
Senate Republicans Call for TikTok Ban
Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Gallagher plan to effectively introduce legislation to ban TikTok in the US. The reason is that the social media app can give the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) access to user data.
“TikTok is a major threat to US national security,” the senators wrote in the Washington Post. “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.”
“With this app, Beijing could also collect sensitive national security information from US government employees. It would develop profiles on millions of Americans to use for blackmail,” Sens. Rubio and Gallagher added.
Moreover, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is calling on Congress to ban TikTok over concerns that user data could end up in the hands of China’s government.
“I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said in an interview with Axios.
Carr added, “There simply 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 CCP.”
Carr also wrote a letter to Apple and Google earlier this year asking the tech giants to remove TikTok from their app stores due to concerns about data harvesting.
Democrat Senator Agrees with TikTok Ban
Democrat Sen. Mark Warner says that former President Donald Trump was right to try and ban the China-owned video-sharing app. He warns parents that TikTok is a major threat to Americans’ privacy… as all data inputted into the app is stored in Beijing.
“Well, I think Donald Trump was right. I mean, TikTok is an enormous threat,” Warner said. “So, if you’re a parent, and you’ve got a kid on TikTok, I would be very, very concerned. All that data your child is inputting and receiving is being stored somewhere in Beijing.”
Warner joins many US officials saying TikTok is a major threat to Americans’ privacy… including FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
The US should not allow foreign entities to own US soil…
Trump should have followed through with banning them when we had the chance. He wanted to ban TikTok 4 years ago, and there was an outrage!
However, there’s a chance that the TikTok ban won’t easily happen under Biden’s watch. There’s also a chance that the CCP is throwing its support behind Joe Biden’s re-election in 2024.
[…] TikTok is a danger to American safety and security. We can no longer turn our heads and pretend we don’t see the growing risk of espionage, specifically from foreign actors utilizing this popular app. […]