Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio on Tuesday introduced a bipartisan proposal to ban the Chinese social network TikTok on U.S. soil amid fears that the platform’s parent company, ByteDance, may be spying on behalf of Beijing.
The senator, one of the most prominent Republicans, has released a statement warning that, under Chinese law, ByteDance is obliged to make the application’s data available to the Communist Party of China.
«From the director of the FBI to the commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and cybersecurity experts, all have made clear the risk of TikTok being used to spy on Americans,» he said.
In his statement, Rubio advocated for legislation to protect citizens by «blocking and prohibiting all transactions by any social media company in, or under the influence of, China, Russia and several other foreign countries.
The Republican senator echoed that both his party colleague, Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher, and Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, have introduced «companion legislation» in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In Rubio’s words, TikTok is not just a social video network, but «an application that collects data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,» and he said that «there is no more time to waste» and it is time to «ban TikTok for good.
For his part, Krishnamoorthi stressed that, at a time when the Chinese Communist Party and «other adversaries» of the United States are seeking «any advantage» against Washington through «espionage and mass surveillance», it is «imperative» to oppose the control of social networks by these governments.
