Hawley is no fan of TikTok.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would ban Chinese social media app TikTok nationwide over security and privacy concerns.
“[TikTok] is China’s backdoor into Americans’ lives. It threatens our children’s privacy as well as their mental health,” Hawley tweeted Tuesday morning. “Last month Congress banned it on all government devices. Now I will introduce legislation to ban it nationwide.”
From Fox Business:
Hawley, a longtime critic of TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has previously accused the app of posing a “major security risk” to the United States. He was the chief author of the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, which was enacted last year and prohibits the use of TikTok on government-issued devices.
A standalone version of Hawley’s bill to ban TikTok on government devices passed the Senate with bipartisan support in December following revelations from FBI Director Christopher Wray that Chinese officials are able to “manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.”
“TikTok is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party. It’s a major security risk to the United States, and until it is forced to sever ties with China completely, it has no place on government devices,” Hawley said in a statement at the time. “States across the U.S. are banning TikTok on government devices. It’s time for Joe Biden and the Democrats to help do the same.”
“Sen. Hawley’s call for a total ban of TikTok takes a piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like data security, privacy, and online harms,” said Brooke Oberwetter, a spokesperson for TikTok.
More over at Fox Business:
Today I’m introducing a bill to ban TikTok nationwide https://t.co/YF7oxly4mH #FoxBusiness
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 25, 2023
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