WASHINGTON: The United States House Foreign Affairs Committee has decided to carry voting next month on the bill targeting a ban on the popular video platform by China, TikTok. Michael McCaul, Chair Representative of the panel, would provide legal tools to the White House to ban TikTok due to national security issues. Michael said that the application is giving a back door to the Chinese government into their mobile phones.
TikTok has had a sour journey in the United States. In 2020, the Trump administration made every possible attempt to stop new users from downloading the application. However, the platform survived after winning the court cases. Later in 2021, the Joe Biden regime showed no interest in blocking TikTok until senator Marco Rubio introduced the bipartisan legislation which not only bans TikTok but also stops all transitions from social media companies belonging to China and Russia.
In 2020, the US government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) directed the owners of TikTok, ByteDance, to divest TikTok because the US fears that the Chinese government could be having access to users’ data.
Though rumours of TikTok facing a ban linger, the popularity of the app in the US might has saved it thus far as the bill to ban the platform requires 60 votes from Senate to pass. TikTok has over 100 million users in the US and has been attempting to assure the US government for the past three years regarding the security of data. Currently, Press Secretary of the White House Jean-Pierre denied to comment regarding the bill and said that details are still in process.
In December, Joe Biden passed legislation that imposed a ban on federal representatives to use or download TikTok on devices owned by the government. As of now, 25 states in the US have banned TikTok on government-owned device