House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is backing Senate-passed legislation that would ban government employees from using the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok on government devices.
The Senate unanimously
passed the legislation on Dec. 14, which would ban the use of TikTok on all government-owned devices. The Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Defense already have such bans in place.
A spokesperson for Pelosi said that she supported appending it to a government funding bill set to go to the House floor this week.
If the House approves its TikTok provision, the Senate would have to add a similar ban to its version of the spending bill before sending it on to President Joe Biden for his signature.
National Security Threat
National intelligence leaders have repeatedly condemned TikTok as a national security threat due to the company’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through parent company ByteDance, a Beijing-based internet company.“The Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose, or to control software on millions of devices which gives it opportunity to potentially technically compromise personal devices,” FBI Director Christopher Wray
said during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in November.
“I would say that we do have national security concerns, at least from the FBI’s [perspective], about TikTok.”
TikTok executives previously
admitted to censoring content at the request of the CCP, including suppressing videos critical of the regime’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Tiananmen Square.
The app also
collects immense amounts of data on users. Far more than merely collecting information on a user’s interests, the app also collects facial recognition patterns, typing behaviors, whatever information the user has copied to their digital clipboard, and everything the user types into the in-app browser, including passwords and bank information.
The company has also admitted (
pdf) that employees in China do have access to American users’ data. CCP laws compel companies to hand over data upon request, thus prompting data security concerns from U.S. officials and experts. For its part, TikTok has repeatedly said that it would never turn over data to the Chinese regime even if asked. The Chinese laws, however, don’t allow companies the right to refuse such requests.
Broader Ban?
Pelosi’s support for the legislation will likely help it to reach the president’s desk in the coming weeks, but TikTok would still remain available in the United States for users operating private devices.
Stronger bipartisan legislation was
introduced on Dec. 13 by Sen Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Reps Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.). That legislation would ban the app from U.S. markets altogether, a feat the lawmakers said was necessary to combat the malign influence of the CCP.
“The federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok,” Rubio said. “This isn’t about creative videos, this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day.”
“We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.”
TikTok has condemned the legislation as politically motivated and maintains that its app is safe for Americans.
“It is troubling that rather than encouraging the Administration to conclude its national security review of TikTok, some members of Congress have decided to push for a politically-motivated ban that will do nothing to advance the national security of the United States,” a TikTok spokesperson said in an email.
Former President Donald Trump had attempted to ban TikTok, but the move was revoked by Biden, who instead ordered the Commerce Department to evaluate the platform to determine whether it poses a national security risk. TikTok is also currently undergoing a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal panel charged with assessing foreign acquisitions for national security risks.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen states have banned Tiktok from government devices. This week alone, Utah, Alabama, and
Tennessee barred usage of the platform on government devices and networks.
Reuters contributed to this report.
