Many American elected officials consider the platform of short and viral videos, which belongs to the Chinese group ByteDance, as a threat to the security of their country.
The United States took a significant step towards a ban on the hugely popular TikTok app on Tuesday via a White House-backed bill, amid growing Western distrust of the Chinese social network.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement that he “welcomed” a bill tabled the same day that would, among other things, ban apps such as TikTok.
This text, carried by a Democratic senator and a Republican senator, “would allow the American State to prevent certain foreign states from operating technological services (…) in a way that threatens the confidential data of Americans and our national security,” the White House adviser wrote.
“Restrict act”
Many American elected officials consider the platform of short and viral videos, which belongs to the Chinese group ByteDance, as a threat to national security. They fear, along with a growing number of Western governments, that Beijing could access user data around the world through this application.
TikTok has been denying it for years, but tensions between the two countries and, recently, the downing of a supposed Chinese spy balloon, have raised calls to stand firm against China.
“It is widely accepted that TikTok poses a threat to our national security,” the influential elected Republican John Thune pleaded on Tuesday by presenting the text, already supported by a dozen senators.
Concretely, the bill, called “Restrict act” gives the Minister of Commerce new powers to prohibit this application.
“Muzzling freedom of expression”
A competing bill, introduced in the House of Representatives, also passed a key milestone in Congress last week. Banning the application would amount to “muzzling the freedom of expression” of millions of Americans, protests TikTok, which claims more than a hundred million users in the United States. The app’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, will be heard by the US Congress at the end of the month.
The application has already surpassed YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook in “time spent” on it by American adults, and is now trailing Netflix.
At the end of February, the White House had already ordered federal institutions to ensure that TikTok disappears from their smartphones within 30 days, pursuant to a law ratified in early January by Joe Biden.
