TikTok ban: U.S. lawmakers look to block app over China spying concerns – National | 24CA News

Republican Senator Marco Rubio on Tuesday introduced bipartisan laws to ban China’s widespread social media app TikTok, ratcheting up stress on proprietor ByteDance Ltd amid U.S. fears the app may very well be used to spy on Americans and censure content material.

The laws would block all transactions from any social media firm in or underneath the affect of China and Russia, Rubio’s workplace mentioned in a news launch, including {that a} companion invoice within the U.S. House of Representatives was sponsored by Republican congressman Mike Gallagher and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi.

ByteDance didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The invoice comes as scrutiny of TikTok has grown in Washington in current weeks, after a failed bid by the Trump administration to ban the video-sharing app.

At a listening to final month, FBI Director Chris Wray mentioned TikTok’s U.S. operations elevate nationwide safety considerations, flagging the chance that the Chinese authorities may harness it to affect customers or management their units.

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Trump threatens to ban TikTok until it turns into U.S.-owned

In 2020, then-President Donald Trump tried to dam new customers from downloading TikTok and ban different transactions that will have successfully blocked the apps’ use within the United States however misplaced a sequence of courtroom battles over the measure.

The U.S. authorities’s Committee on Foreign Investment within the United States (CFIUS), a robust nationwide safety physique, in 2020 ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok due to fears that U.S. consumer information may very well be handed on to China’s communist authorities.

CFIUS and TikTok have been in talks for months aiming to succeed in a nationwide safety settlement to guard the info of TikTok’s greater than 100 million customers.

— Reporting by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Alexandra Hudson

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