Concerns over the Chinese-owned social media platform’s impact on national security led to the Senate unanimously passing a bill to prohibit its use on government equipment.
Late Wednesday, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) passed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act.
TikTok is a covert propaganda platform for the Chinese Communist Party. Hawley said Thursday that the company poses a serious threat to national security and should be banned from all government-issued equipment until it is compelled to cut all relations with China. In light of security concerns, many American states have banned TikTok from all state-owned computers and mobile devices. Now is the moment for Democrats and Vice President Joe Biden to pitch in.
For this measure to become law, it must first be approved by the House and signed into law by Vice President Joe Biden.
While speaking at the University of Michigan at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray brought up TikTok’s security issues.
Everything is under the control of a government that doesn’t believe as we do and whose goals are counter to those of the United States. We should be worried about it,” Wray added.
The Senate’s decision comes after several jurisdictions barred access to the app on government-issued gadgets. The governors of Alabama, Iowa, and North Dakota have all issued executive orders banning or restricting access to TikTok in their states, as reported by The Daily Wire on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In August 2020, Nebraska’s Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, became the first state leader to prohibit the use of the app on government-owned smartphones. Governor Kristi Noem, a Republican in South Dakota, banned the app in November, and many other states with Republican governors soon followed suit.
TikTok has been banned in several places, including Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah. Ten states have already implemented prohibitions, and others seriously contemplate doing the same.
Moreover, a coalition of politicians from both major parties spearheads an effort to outlaw TikTok in all 50 states.
This month, a Republican Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, presented the bill. In the House, Republicans Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Democrats Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois have sponsored similar bills.
Defending the country from the digital monitoring and influence operations of totalitarian governments is a top priority, and the bipartisan ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act does just that, Krishnamoorthi said in a statement.
An executive order signed by former President Trump will outlaw the use of the app TikTok beginning in 2020. Legal obstacles prevented the order from being carried out. In June 2021, Biden withdrew it and issued his policy to further safeguard American citizens’ personal information from any threats from outside.
More than 100 million Americans use TikTok every month. The Apple App Store and Google Play have featured it as one of their top applications.