Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Josh Hawley from Missouri, reintroduced legislation to ban the social media app TikTok from government devices, citing the Chinese-owned platform as a major national security risk.
The No TikTok on Government Devices Act was initially introduced in 2020 and easily passed in the Senate in August, but it was not voted on in the House.
This time, the bill has some new co-sponsors: GOP Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio of Florida, and Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado will also introduce similar legislation in the House.
“TikTok is a Trojan horse for the Chinese Communist Party that has no place on government devices—or any American devices, for that matter,” Hawley said in a statement Thursday.
“My bill is a straightforward plan to protect American government data from a hostile foreign power, which, less than a year ago, passed the Senate unanimously. TikTok has repeatedly proven itself to be a malicious actor but Joe Biden and Big Tech refuse to take the threat of Chinese espionage seriously,” said Hawley.
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The platform has already been banned from federal government devices in a number of agencies, including the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the Transportation Security Administration. The legislation submitted Thursday would ban it from devices in all other parts of the federal government.
Buck, who is the ranking member on the House antitrust panel within the Judiciary Committee, said TikTok data could be controlled by the Chinese government, so it cannot be trusted.
“Chinese-owned apps are required to report user data to the Chinese Communist Party, that is why we cannot trust TikTok with the sensitive data that exists on U.S. government devices,” Buck said in a statement Thursday. “It is well past time to acknowledge the serious cybersecurity threat that TikTok poses and enact a federal government-wide ban on the Chinese app.”
TikTok first came into the spotlight when former President Donald Trump tried to ban the app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, and pushed the parent company to sell the app, which it is attempting to do.
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There is litigation pending between TikTok and the Biden administration regarding Trump’s initial order to ban the app. The Biden administration is currently making its own assessment of the potential security risks posed by ByteDance and TikTok.
