More states banning TikTok on government devices amid China threat
The Heritage Foundation's Jake Denton discusses the need for an outright TikTok ban for users in the United States on 'Fox News Live.'
Twitter influencers and politicians on both sides of the aisle have united in calls to "ban TikTok" after lawmakers proposed bipartisan legislation to stop the most popular app in the world from operating in the U.S.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio spearheaded the push to ban TikTok, arguing in a press statement Tuesday that the reasons to bar the app were easily apparent and widely agreed upon: "From the FBI Director to FCC Commissioners to cybersecurity experts, everyone has made clear the risk of TikTok being used to spy on Americans."
The legislation would effectively demonetize any app in China's orbit and is titled "Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act," or in short, the "ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act."
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Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, walks to a Senate Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set up Thursday night votes on a short-term debt ceiling increase that would leave the battle to be rejoined less than two months from now, in the middle of an already packed congressional agenda. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Rubio also exposed TikTok as a Chinese government-sponsored backdoor into Americans’ phones and private data in a Twitter post the next day. "The Communist government of #China can access the private data of any American using @tiktok_us any time they want. Tik Tok should be banned."
But TikTok wasn't Rubio's only target. The senator also blasted CNN for describing the effort to "ban TikTok in the U.S," with the outlet's senior media reporter Oliver Darcy labeling the anti-TikTok movement a GOP "craze" on Twitter Tuesday.
Rubio fired back: "This isn’t a GOP-led #TikTok ban ‘craze,’" he wrote. "It’s an over 3 year effort that has always been bipartisan[.] But @CNN’s obsession with bashing Republicans is so ingrained in their culture their ‘journalists’ reflexively defend anyone we are against,even the Communist Party of #China."
Rebel News correspondent Avi Yemini reminded Twitter users that former President Donald Trump took heat back in 2020 for demanding the app be banned and even issuing an Executive Order to that effect. "It took them long enough to realise Trump was right. Again."
A split photo of former U.S. President Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida on November 15, 2022, and the TikTok logo shown on a mobile phone in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, Nov 29, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Republican Governors have led the charge against TikTok, issuing multiple ban orders in Maryland, Texas, South Dakota, Oklahoma and other states. Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted on Dec. 7 that "the threat posed by the CCP through TikTok is serious and must be stopped." South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem declared that "South Dakota will have no part in the intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us" after she issued an executive order banning the app from government-owned devices. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt similarly used the power of the government to direct that TikTok be "blacklisted from State networks and State-managed devices."
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Momentum is also mounting against TikTok in the Senate, as Missouri Senator Josh Hawley tweeted Wednesday morning that "Democrats won’t" take action against TikTok, "so I will."
"This week I will go to the Senate floor to try [to] pass a federal ban on TikTok on all government devices."
Sen. Josh Hawley, (R-MO), speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing. (Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS)
Members of the House have also expressed outrage at TikTok's continued dominance in the U.S. Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher called TikTok "digital fentanyl" in a fiery statement introducing a law that would ban TikTok from operating in the U.S.
"TikTok is digital fentanyl that’s addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news. It’s also an increasingly powerful media company that’s owned by ByteDance, which ultimately reports to the Chinese Communist Party – America’s foremost adversary. Allowing the app to continue to operate in the U.S. would be like allowing the U.S.S.R. to buy up the New York Times, Washington Post, and major broadcast networks during the Cold War."