The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted on March 1 to advance a bill that would empower President Joe Biden to ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok in the United States.
The committee voted 24–16 along party lines, sending the bill to the House floor, where it will need approval by a majority of the chamber before moving to the Senate.
The measure, if eventually adopted by Congress, would be the most sweeping government action to date against the popular social media app, which security experts say can be used by the Chinese regime to spy on Americans or to promote pro-China influence campaigns or disinformation.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump attempted to ban TikTok in the United States, but the move was blocked by a federal judge.
Widespread Vulnerability
More than 113 million Americans use TikTok each month, 67 percent of whom are younger than the age of 20, according to Statista. The app is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based internet giant.“TikTok is a security threat. It allows the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to manipulate and monitor its users while it gobbles up Americans’ data to be used for their malign activities,” McCaul told NTD, the sister media outlet of The Epoch Times.
“Anyone with TikTok downloaded on their device has given the CCP a backdoor to all their personal information. It’s a spy balloon into your phone.”
Under the terms of the bill, the U.S. Treasury Department would have 180 days after enactment to issue a directive prohibiting any American from knowingly transferring “sensitive personal data of persons subject to any United States jurisdiction” to anyone “subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, or directly or indirectly operating on behalf of, China” or anyone otherwise under Chinese influence.
The president would have 90 days after passage of the law to determine whether “reasonable grounds exist” to conclude that TikTok or its parent company are directly or indirectly operating on behalf of the Chinese regime or could be facilitating China’s espionage, censorship, surveillance, or malicious cyber activities.
That includes algorithms that are capable of recommending content to target audiences for information campaigns.
Agreement in Principle, Not Form
Committee Democrats agreed that action is needed to protect the privacy of Americans but argued that the bill itself was poorly written and put forward in haste.“These bills are not just bad policy, they will actively undermine our national security. The legislation before us today is unvetted and dangerously over-broad,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the committee’s ranking Democratic member, said.
Meeks also complained that the bill was offered without consultation with the minority and without hearings on the subject, a claim McCaul denied.
“Our staff has been working for the month of February. They saw the text on the 17th. It’s unfortunate we didn’t get a lot of response,” McCaul said.
Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) opposed the bill because it hadn’t been adequately vetted with input from experts in technology, business, and regulatory agencies.
“If we want to get serious about protecting the data privacy of millions of Americans and about our national security in the 21st century, then this deserves close study and open dialogue, neither of which has happened,” Stanton said.
Washington Ad Blitz
The committee hearing played out against a backdrop of aggressive advertising of TikTok in Washington.Multiple ads touting TikTok’s safety protocols have appeared in Washington’s Union Station, the busiest transportation hub in the city, serving 35,000 commuters per day.
Outdoor ads have been placed around the city, as well as in various publications, including the online newsletter The Hill.
The Hill claims a print circulation of more than 24,000 with readership in 100 percent of congressional offices and the White House.
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