FLORIDA, USA — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced bipartisan legislation to ban TikTok from operating in the United States last month.
In a release from his office, he explained that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is required by Chinese law to make the app’s data available to the Chinese Communist Party.
The ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act would protect Americans by blocking and prohibiting all transactions from any social media company in, or under the influence of, China, Russia, and several other foreign countries of concern.
U.S. Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) introduced companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“The federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok," said Rubio. "This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day. We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good.”
“TikTok is digital fentanyl that’s addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news,” said Representative Gallagher.
Students and staff at the University of Florida may soon be banned from using the social media app TikTok on university devices and networks due to possible security risks.
The university reportedly sent out a campus-wide email last week stating that the app is a "national security concern" and that "foreign governments may use TikTok to control data collection, influence TikTok's recommendation algorithm, and compromise personal devices."