TikTok Faces U.S. Ban in New Draft Bill
Live MintTikTok, the short-video platform owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance, is facing renewed political pressure in the U.S. from a draft bill that could lead to a ban of its popular video-sharing app. The bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, who leads the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, addresses “foreign adversary-controlled applications," and flags what it says are national security risks posed by TikTok and “any other application or service developed or provided by Bytedance." A TikTok spokesperson described the bill as “an outright ban of TikTok," adding that it would “trample" on First Amendment rights and affect 170 million American users and 5 million small businesses on the platform in the U.S. Another bill introduced by Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi on Tuesday seeks enforcement action on data brokers who sell data to foreign adversaries or their controlled entities. Earlier attempts by lawmakers to ban TikTok, including the RESTRICT Act introduced last year, which would give the U.S. administration power to ban the platform, haven’t come to fruition.