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A number of Republicans are doubling down on an effort to limit the use of TikTok by users in the United States due to concerns about data and privacy risks.<\/p>\n
Rep.\u00a0Mike Gallagher<\/strong> (R-Wis.) told host\u00a0Jake Tapper<\/strong> on \u201cState of the Union\u201d on Sunday morning that its\u00a0100 million US<\/a>\u00a0users should delete TikTok<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s highly addictive, highly destructive,\u201d Gallagher said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cParticularly as a younger member of Congress, this will make me very unpopular with your teenagers and many others,\u201d Gallagher continued. \u201cBut the fundamental problem is this, Jake: TikTok is owned by ByteDance, and ByteDance is effectively controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.\u201d (TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is based in Beijing.<\/a>)<\/p>\n This content can also be viewed on the site it originates<\/a> from.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This claim, that the app is linked to the Chinese government, is echoed by many Republicans.\u00a0\u201cIf you have TikTok on your phone, delete it now<\/a>,\u201d Sen.\u00a0Tom Cotton<\/strong>\u00a0(R-Ark.) said last week. \u201cAnd you should probably get a new phone as well.\u201d<\/p>\n On Friday, Virginia\u2019s Republican Governor\u00a0Glenn Youngkin<\/strong> announced that TikTok and the app WeChat were banned from being used on state-issued devices.\u00a0“TikTok and WeChat data are a channel to the Chinese Communist Party, and their continued presence represents a threat to national security, the intelligence community, and the personal privacy of every single American<\/a>,” Youngkin said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Republican governors of\u00a0Alabama<\/a>,\u00a0Georgia<\/a>,\u00a0Idaho<\/a>,\u00a0New Hampshire<\/a>,\u00a0North Dakota<\/a>, and\u00a0Utah<\/a> also banned TikTok\u2019s usage on state-owned devices. These states join a number of other Republican-led states\u2014Texas<\/a>,\u00a0Maryland<\/a>, South Dakota<\/a>,\u00a0South Carolina<\/a> and\u00a0Nebraska<\/a>\u2014that have already enacted the same measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the same vein, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill<\/a> on Wednesday that proposed banning the social media app from being used on devices issued by federal agencies. On Tuesday,\u00a0Sen.\u00a0Marco Rubio<\/strong>\u00a0(R-Fla.)\u00a0introduced a bill Tuesday that would \u201cblock and prohibit all transactions<\/a>\u201d by TikTok and any other social media apps operating \u201cunder the influence\u201d of China. A companion bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Gallagher and Rep.\u00a0Raja Krishnamoorthi<\/strong>\u00a0(D-Ill.)<\/p>\n Despite the swirl of concerns,\u00a0TikTok has said it doesn\u2019t share information with the Chinese government<\/a>. “It is troubling that rather than encouraging the administration to conclude its national security review of TikTok,\u00a0some members of Congress have decided to push for a politically-motivated ban<\/a> that will do nothing to advance the national security of the United States,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will continue to brief members of Congress on the plans that have been developed under the oversight of our country\u2019s top national security agencies<\/a>\u2014plans that we are well underway in implementing\u2014to further secure our platform in the United States,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n In an op-ed in the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em> last month, Rubio and Gallagher accused President\u00a0Joe Biden<\/strong> of \u201cencouraging greater engagement with the platform by directly courting TikTok influencers<\/a>,\u201d after the\u00a0president met with influencers<\/a>, hoping their posts would bring more young voters to the polls for the midterm elections.<\/p>\n Similarly, Rubio and Gallagher wrote in a joint statement:\u00a0\u201cThe federal government\u00a0has yet to take a single meaningful action<\/a>\u00a0to protect American users from the threat of TikTok.\u201d Interestingly, former President Donald Trump<\/strong> attempted to ban TikTok from operating in the United States<\/a>\u2014yet his efforts were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nTwitter content<\/h4>\n