Washington, D.C. — Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) has cosponsored S.85, the No TikTok on United States Devices Act.
The bill would prohibit the Chinese-based TikTok application from being downloaded on all U.S. devices and ban all commercial activity related to ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.
The bill was originally introduced by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO).
Sen. Budd said in a statement:
“TikTok represents a massive threat to the personal privacy of every American, as well as our country’s national security. The Chinese Communist Party must be stopped from cyber-snooping and data mining. In order to protect the American people from this massive threat, the time has come to ban TikTok in the United States.”
Background:
The legislation would:
- Direct the President to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) within 30 days to block and prohibit transactions with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, with stiff penalties for entities that attempt to evade these sanctions.
- Within 120 days of enactment, require the Director of National Intelligence to submit a report and brief Congress on the threats to national security posed by TikTok, including:
- The ability of the Chinese government to access U.S. user data.
- The ability of the Chinese government to use U.S. user data for intelligence or military purposes, including surveillance, microtargeting, deepfakes, or blackmail.
- Ongoing efforts by the Chinese government to monitor or manipulate Americans using data accessed via TikTok.
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