Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (Ky.) publicly supports a potential ban on one of the world's largest social media platforms.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including the outgoing minority leader, is pushing for a bill to compel the Beijing-based owner of TikTok to sell the platform or face a ban in the U.S. The legislation is being considered due to grave concerns about the company's ties and the potential risks it poses to national security. (RELATED: DOJ Arrests ISIS Supporter, Thwarts Domestic Terror Attack)
President Joe Biden has said he will sign the bill if it passes the Senate.
TikTok is vigorously defending its right to encourage its users to lobby their members of Congress to oppose the rapidly moving bill. The House passed the bill last month by a margin of 352 to 65, though it faces a more challenging road in the Senate, as Axios reported:
“America's greatest strategic rival is threatening our security right here on U.S. soil in tens of millions of Americans homes,” McConnell said from the Senate floor on Monday afternoon.
“I'm speaking of course of TikTok,” he continued.
Supporters are cautiously optimistic McConnell's comments may be able to revive the stagnant efforts.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also included TikTok legislation as one of his priority items to get done before the November election.
Schumer has yet to commit to bringing the House-passed bill to the floor.
“This is a matter that deserves Congress' urgent attention,” McConnell told his colleagues. “And I'll support commonsense bipartisan steps to take one of Beijing's favorite tools of coercion and espionage off the table.” (RELATED: Kentucky Lawmakers Exclude Democratic Governor From Choosing Potential McConnell Replacement)
The House-passed bill has a few skeptics from both parties who consider it constitutionally dubious. They argue it aims to ban a foreign-owned media company that's become a bogeyman, but fails to address privacy and ethical concerns related to data mining and data manipulation.
TikTok likes to minimize claims of Chinese ownership, saying its founder, Chinese national Zhang Yiming, owns 20% of its shares.
TikTok executives testified that Americans' data was stored outside of China, but they later admitted to exceptions in July 2023.
The social media platform has an estimated 170 million American users.
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