Staff Reports
The legislation introduced by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri to ban the Chinese app TikTok was included in the massive spending bill passed by Congress earlier this year.
The No TikTok Act, which was introduced by Congressman Tim Walberg, was included in the spending bill after it passed the Senate.
After initially raising some concerns about the wording of the legislation, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California supported it last week. Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California also called on Pelosi to allow a vote on the bill.
Wonders never cease https://t.co/3S3MxoKaJM
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 20, 2022
After the spending bill language was released, Senator Josh Hawley noted on Twitter that the ban on TikTok would be the first major action against Big Tech.
The legislation would prevent ByteDance Limited and its subsidiaries from providing or promoting the services or products of TikTok, except to national security and law enforcement officials.
After the bill was passed, Senator Josh Hawley released a statement saying that TikTok was a threat to the US and that it should be removed from government devices. He noted that several states in the country had already banned the app. It’s time for Democrats and Joe Biden to join the other states in banning TikTok.
The United States Senate passed legislation Wednesday night by unanimous consent to ban the Chinese social media app TikTok from U.S. government devices amid national security risks. https://t.co/St2K1Efy72
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 16, 2022
A spokesperson for TikTok released a statement last week, saying that the legislation would do nothing to improve the country's national security interests.
Several state governors have also announced that they would ban the use of TikTok on their state-issued devices. Some of the Republican governors who have joined the list include Georgia's Brian Kemp, Montana's Greg Gianforte, Alabama's Kay Ivey, and Iowa's Kim Reynolds.
Under the leadership of Donald Trump in 2020, the US government tried to ban the Chinese social media platform TikTok. However, instead of blocking the app, the company's parent company decided to sell the platform to an US company.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on BREITBART.
