The House Republican Conference is working to ban the use of TikTok by federal government employees, according to a new report.
The social media platform’s parent company, ByteDance, has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
According to a report from the Daily Caller, legislation will be introduced to the Judiciary Committee, which is set to be led by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, when Republicans take control in the next Congress.
“We’re working on something right now,” an unnamed Republican aide told the Caller.
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The Caller report adds, “the measure comes days after Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota issued an executive order that banned the use of TikTok by all state government employees and contractors using official devices. Her measure follows other bans issued by the U.S. military, Transportation Security Administration and several government agencies individually restricting their personnel from using the app, as well as widespread concerns that TikTok user data is accessed by the Chinese government to engage in malign influence within the United States.”
Former President Donald Trump had attempted to ban TikTok while he was in office in 2020, but was blocked. Many, including Democrats, have now admitted that he had been right.
Democrat Sen. Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, admitted Trump was right during a recent appearance on Fox News Sunday.
The senator told host Shannon Bream, “as painful as it is for me to say, if Donald Trump was right and we could’ve taken action then, that’d have been a heckuva lot easier than trying to take action in November of 2022.”
“Did Washington simply not listen because they didn’t like the messenger then and what can we do now?” Bream asked.
“Well, I think Donald Trump was right,” Warner said. “I mean, TikTok is an enormous threat.”
Warner explained that TikTok is “a massive collector of information,” including from children.
“So if you’re a parent and you got a kid on TikTok, I would be very, very concerned,” Warner said. “All of that data that your child is inputting and receiving is being stored somewhere in Beijing.”
Sen. Tom Cotton also recently sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding information about foreign TikTok employees in the United States.
“TikTok captures vast amounts of private information on users, including American citizens, and has long been suspected of providing the CCP with potential access to that information,” Cotton wrote. “This threatens the safety and security of American citizens, and also functions as an avenue for the Chinese government to track the locations of and develop blackmail on Federal employees and contractors.”