SPOKANE, Wash. – Tik Tok could hit the federal chopping-block soon following the passage of a bipartisan policy which would impose restrictions upon the popular Chinese app in the US House on Wednesday.
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R), chair of the US House Energy and Commerce Committee, is pitching the bill which would require the sale of Tik Tok to a US company or a complete ban as a critical national security measure.
“The action today is to protect the data of 177 million users in America from having that data surveilled, targeted and manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party,” McMorris Rodgers said.
According to the Energy and Commerce Committee bill report, Tik Tok is tightly controlled by the CCP.
“Public reporting has repeatedly confirmed statements made by the Executive Branch regarding the tight interlinkages between…TikTok, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” the report said.
McMorris Rodgers argued that former president Donald Trump originated the effort to regulate Tik Tok.
“President Trump started this effort,” McMorris Rodgers said.
Trump voiced his opposition to the bill, which was widely supported by Republicans as well as Democrats, on March 11.
Trump campaign pollster John McLaughlin told Politico that the former president had young voters in mind when he stood against the Tik Tok regulation policy.
“You’ve got a third of American voters on it, which makes it very hard to take something away from the voters that they want or that they use,” McLaughlin said.
President Joe Biden says he will sign a bill requiring the sale or ban of Tik Tok if it hits his desk, and the White House is involved in negotiations with the national legislature on the wording of a potential final draft of the bill.
Now that the policy has passed the House with broad support, it will move to the US Senate for consideration.
