GOP Senators Clash Over TikTok Ban, Citing Pro-Hamas Content on Senate Floor

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) speaks during the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference at Hilton in Washington on June 23, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have clashed on the Senate floor over a bill to ban the use of social media app TikTok in the United States.

In January, Sen. Hawley introduced the No TikTok on United States Devices Act to prohibit TikTok from operating in the United States. The bill would also ban commercial activity with TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance.

Mr. Hawley criticized the app from the Senate on Nov. 8 for showing pro-Hamas propaganda to users since the outbreak of war between the terrorist group and Israel.

He highlighted the pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses across more than a few colleges in the United States, which have attracted widespread backlash, as proof of the app’s influence.

“Where are these students and young people, teenagers, where are they hearing this? Where are they seeing it, where are they being fed this propaganda?” Mr. Hawley pressed.

“Because propaganda it is. At least one of these answers is that they are finding it on TikTok,” he added.

A person holds a smartphone as a Tik Tok logo is displayed behind in this picture illustration taken on Nov. 7, 2019. Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Mr. Hawley also called the app a “back door for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to track the keystrokes and personal information of every American who has the app on their phone.”

TikTok has been dogged by reports that it could become answerable to the edicts of the CCP, which controls China and any China-based businesses under its single-party rule, since its worldwide release in August 2018.

CIA Director William Burns and FBI Director Christopher Wray are among several national security and intelligence leaders who have warned of TikTok’s threat to national security.

A class-action lawsuit has also claimed TikTok violates state laws against wiretapping because the app records every keystroke, click, swipe, and text communication, including information written but not sent by the user, when users enter other websites through the app.

Mr. Hawley says Chinese laws under the CCP require corporations to make information and data available to Chinese authorities on request.

“It is time to put an end to this. It’s time we took the step to protect the American people, to protect the integrity of Americans’ personal information and their personal privacy,” Mr. Hawley said.

TikTok Ban Could Be Electoral Disaster for Republicans

In March, Mr. Hawley delivered similar remarks on the Senate floor. He called for unanimous consent on his bill, the No TikTok on United States Devices Act. At the time, Sen. Rand Paul objected, as was the case again this time.

Mr. Paul believes that banning TikTok is a First Amendment issue and would promote government censorship. He believes a better solution to combat the influence of TikTok is to “counter flawed ideas or falsities with more speech and better arguments.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) speaks in Washington on Dec. 20, 2022. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“The banning TikTok strategy, comes while the GOP simultaneously complains of liberal U.S. social media companies canceling and censoring conservatives. So without a hint of irony, many of these same, quote, conservatives now agitate to censor viewpoints they don’t like,” Mr. Paul said.

“Do we really want to emulate China’s speech bans? Do we want to intrude on the lives of Americans, deprive them of their First Amendment right to receive and consider information?” he added.

Mr. Paul also questioned the overall impact banning the app could have on the Republican Party in future elections.

He called the ban of an app used by primarily young Americans as a “recipe for electoral disaster for Republicans.”

“If there is a better national strategy to permanently lose elections for a generation, I’ve not heard of it,” Mr. Paul said.

According to Exploding Topics, the United States has the largest TikTok audience at over 135 million, and close to half of those users are under 30.

Hawley Says Free Speech Not the Issue, Spying Is

Mr. Hawley fired back that the proposed bill has “nothing to do with speech” and has “everything to do with spying.”

“Let’s just be clear about one thing: the Chinese Communist government is not covered by the United States’s Bill of Rights,” Mr. Hawley said.

“The Chinese Communist government does not have free speech rights. And we’re not talking about free speech, we’re not talking about speech at all.”

Tik Tok logos are seen on smartphones in front of a displayed ByteDance logo in this illustration taken Nov. 27, 2019. Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/Reuters

Mr. Hawley has already had some success in banning TikTok, with his No TikTok on Government Devices Act, which was signed into law in December 2022. The act banned the app on all federal devices, including those belonging to the Department of Defense.

However, in a Nov. 7 letter to the Secretary of the Treasury and Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), Chairwoman Janet Yellen, he outlined why he thinks the stakes are much higher in this case.

In the letter, Mr. Hawley urges Ms. Yellen to conclude CFIUS’s review of TikTok and to ban all ByteDance-controlled apps currently available to U.S. users.

“TikTok—and its parent company ByteDance—are threats to American national security,” Mr. Hawley said in his letter.

“While data security issues are paramount, less often discussed is TikTok’s power to radically distort the world-picture that America’s young people encounter,” the senator warned.

Mr. Hawley concluded by saying he believes the longer that TikTok is allowed to operate in the United States, the easier it will be for the CCP to “propagandize Americans.”

The Epoch Times contacted TikTok for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.