Bill to ban TikTok in US reflects growing concerns in Congress over China
- Senators Marco Rubio and Angus King have revived legislation to block the popular video-sharing app amid fears that US user data could fall into Beijing’s hands
- A similar proposal failed in the last Congress, but there appears to be an emerging consensus among US lawmakers that action must be taken
A group of lawmakers has revived legislation to ban TikTok in the US as doubts grow about the viability of an effort to keep data it collects from falling into the hands of the Chinese government.
Senators Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, and Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with the Democrats, have introduced legislation that would block the popular video-sharing platform because it is controlled by China and there are fears the Beijing government could compel it to share data on US users.
The fate of the legislation – similar to a measure that failed in the last Congress – is unclear as it is likely to draw opposition from the powerful tech lobby and pits lawmakers against millions of mostly young users of the platform.
But the proposal reflects an emerging consensus on Capitol Hill that something must be done as questions mount about whether efforts to wall off US data from people in China can succeed.
The Biden administration, through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, has been working on an arrangement that would store US data on servers hosted by Oracle Corp.