RALEIGH — U.S. Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) has cosponsored a bill that would prohibit Chinese-based social media app TikTok from being downloaded and used commercially on all U.S. devices.
S.85, the No TikTok on United States Devices Act, was introduced by Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley.
“TikTok represents a massive threat to the personal privacy of every American, as well as our country’s national security,” Budd said in a statement. “The Chinese Communist Party must be stopped from cyber-snooping and data mining. In order to protect the American people from this threat, the time has come to ban TikTok in the United States.”
The legislation, if passed by Congress, would direct the president to act within 30 days to block transactions to evade the ban and require the director of National Intelligence to submit a report and brief Congress on the threats to national security posed by TikTok.
The threats include the Chinese government’s access to U.S. user data, their ability to use U.S. user data for intelligence or military purposes, and ongoing efforts by the Chinese government to monitor or manipulate Americans using data accessed via TikTok.
Many countries have banned the app on government devices already, such as the U.S., Canada and the European Union’s governing bodies.
India banned TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps in 2020 following skirmishes between the two countries in a mountainous border region.
