US Senator Josh Hawley Plans Nationwide TikTok Ban Bill: 'TikTok is China's Backdoor Into Americans' Lives'
Per Reuters
US Senator Josh Haley is taking a strong stance against TikTok, saying it should be outright banned from the country. To take things a step further, he plans to introduce a bill that would ban the app nationally.
The US Senate officially banned using TikTok on all government phones. Biden signed the "Electoral Count Act" reformation into effect, which would remove the app from all employee devices.
Despite effectively banning the app from government devices, US Senator Haley feels it is not enough and that the ban should stretch further. Aside from federal employees, the Senator believes the app poses a much larger threat to America in a statement made on Twitter.
Haley: "TikTok is China's backdoor into Americans' lives. It threatens our children's privacy as well as their mental health... Now I will introduce legislation to ban it nationwide"
So far, no details were released regarding when the bill would be introduced or its specific inclusions.
TikTok's head of policy communications, Brooke Oberwetter, gave a statement regarding the move by TikTok. It was highlighted that the move would not be effective if the main goal was to really improve national security.
Other issues Oberwetter tackled included data security, privacy, and online harm. The TikTok PR shared how the efforts of the US Senator should be directed towards other actions instead of focusing all his efforts towards trying to ban a single app (TikTok) nationally.
Oberwetter: "We hope that he will focus his energies on efforts to address those issues holistically, rather than pretending that banning a single service would solve any of the problems he's concerned about or make Americans any safer."
This comes after TikTok reportedly spied on Forbes journalists with reports that four employees were fired after the incident. TikTok denied the allegations highlighting how the app would spy on US citizens by following keystrokes and listening to audio.
See flow at unusualwhales.com/flow.
Other News:
- Biden Signs Bill Mandating TikTok's Removal from Phones of Gov't Employees Under 'Electoral Count Act' Reformation
- TikTok has reportedly spied on Forbes journalists
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