Legislation Against Chinese App: US Lawmakers To Introduce ‘TikTok Bill’

Washington: Amid a growing call in the United States to ban TikTok, US lawmakers are set to bring in a TikTok bill.

US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy said lawmakers will move ahead with legislation to address national security worries about TikTok, the short video app owned by China-based company ByteDance, reported Reuters.

The US have alleged that Chinese government had access to TikTok’s user data.

Passing bipartisan legislation is aimed to give President Joe Biden’s administration the legal authority to seek a ban on the Chinese app.

Devices owned by US government were recently banned from having the app installed.

“The House will be moving forward with legislation to protect Americans from the technological tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party,” McCarthy wrote on Twitter.

Last week, a US House Committee comprising lawmakers from both parties grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on national security and other concerns involving the app, which has 150 million American users.

Asked if the app has spied on Americans at Beijing’s request, the TikTok CEO answered ‘no’.

Reminded about the company’s disclosure last December that some China-based employees at ByteDance improperly accessed TikTok user data of two journalists, Chew said, “I don’t think that spying is the right way to describe it… it was an internal investigation,” before being cut off.