Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Mike Gallagher are introducing legislation to ban the TikTok app in the United States, the two lawmakers wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post today.
They cited recent reporting that points at significant overlap between TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and Chinese Communist Party–directed propaganda organizations. They also mentioned TikTok’s ability to collect U.S.-users’ locations, internet-browsing data, and keystrokes, as well as its reported plans to monitor the locations of specific U.S. citizens.
They also wrote that the CCP could use TikTok as a megaphone for disinformation to promote its preferred narratives:
The CCP could also use TikTok to propagate videos that support party-friendly politicians or exacerbate discord in American society. Such videos need not originate from CCP proxies — they could be created by anyone. With essentially unlimited data on user-made content at its disposal, Beijing can leverage it to fan the flames of domestic division.
And thanks to the rising number of adults who get their news from TikTok, the platform has the ability to influence which issues Americans learn about, what information they consider accurate, and what conclusions they draw from world events. This places extraordinary power in the hands of company employees who could any day be overruled by the CCP.
Rubio currently serves as the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Democratic senator Mark Warner, the chairman of the committee, has also expressed alarm about TikTok’s national-security implications, recently saying that President Donald Trump was right to attempt to ban the app. Gallagher is a member of the House’s intelligence committee.
Gallagher and Rubio wrote that they are not optimistic about the Biden administration’s ongoing national-security review of TikTok’s data-security practices:
TikTok is a major threat to U.S. national security. Yet Biden is encouraging greater engagement with the platform by directly courting TikTok influencers. Furthermore, reports suggest that he is nearing a deal that would authorize TikTok’s continued operation in the United States without any change in ownership.
This would dangerously compromise national security and provide a template for other CCP-controlled companies to establish themselves in the United States with minimal scrutiny. 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.
These are unacceptable outcomes. This is why we’re introducing legislation which would ban TikTok and other social media companies that are effectively controlled by the CCP from operating in the United States. Congress needs to act against the TikTok threat before it’s too late.
The two lawmakers’ decision to introduce the legislation now suggests two paths forward for the proposal. They could attempt to insert their bill into the annual defense-authorization bill that Congress is expected to pass before the end of the year. If it’s not included there, the bill stands a chance of winning the approval of what is expected to be a Republican-controlled House in the next Congress. GOP leaders have promised a China-focused legislative blitz.
Either way, Gallagher and Rubio will have to get the legislation past TikTok’s politically savvy team of former lawmakers and Congressional staffers, who are working for the CCP-linked tech giant. That lobbying team, however effectively it has defended ByteDance before, will have to contend with growing bipartisan alarm of the app.