TikTok would be banned from most U.S. government devices under a spending measure announced Tuesday morning.
The $1.7 trillion package requires the Biden administration to ban most uses of TikTok and other ByteDance apps. Exemptions for national security, law enforcement, and research exempt Congress, where a few lawmakers have TikTok accounts.
Two-thirds of American youths use TikTok, the world’s second-most popular domain. Washington has long feared Beijing will grab American user data or push pro-China narratives or falsehoods.
TikTok representative Brooke Oberwetter termed the ban “a political gesture that won’t help national security.” As part of the Biden administration’s national security review, TikTok is drafting security and privacy plans.
“These plans have been develop under the oversight of our country’s top national security agencies — plans that we are well underway in implementing — to secure our platform in the United States further, and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them,” Oberwetter state.
Last Friday, CIA Director William Burns warned Beijing could “insist upon extracting the private data of a lot of TikTok users in this country and also to shape the content of what goes on to TikTok, as well to suit the interests of the Chinese leadership.”
“These are serious issues,” Burns told PBS. He declined to comment on TikTok restrictions.
Nancy Pelosi’s office wanted to include TikTok in the year-end bill. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who drafted the TikTok bill that passed last week, termed it “the first major strike against Big Tech enacted into law.”
Hawley said people should be able to use TikTok without Beijing’s interference. He demanded that ByteDance sell its U.S. operations to the Biden administration, and Trump’s attempts to ban TikTok from U.S. app stores were thwarte.
“We shouldn’t have to ban it,” Hawley said. “Put up a firewall between Beijing and TikTok.”
Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi co-sponsored legislation to ban TikTok in the U.S. He called the government ban a reasonable first step and said greater action is support.
“We’re talking about parents concerned broadly about social media and TikTok in particular,” Krishnamoorthi remarked. “We’re not just talking about Republicans and Democrats and independents,”
