Toni Dimaano Tech 01.26.2023 22:Jan PM EST

Sen. Josh Hawley Files A New Legislation Proposing Nationwide TikTok Ban

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Congressman Ken Buck (R-CO) presented a bill on Wednesday to limit the use of the widely used TikTok app.

Because of this, the White House is now under increasing pressure from Congress to outlaw the popular Chinese-owned video-sharing platform nationwide.

The Legislation Follows Major Security Risk Concerns From The State

In the past, a similar bill to ban TikTok in the US was submitted during the previous Congressional session, but neither chamber approved it.

According to Gizmodo, The No TikTok on United States Devices Act would prohibit access to the app on all devices, but it might encounter opposition in the coming weeks from a divided Congress.

The Chinese business ByteDance, which introduced TikTok in 2016, has come under fire from federal authorities.

They claim that the software poses a security concern to the country since it allows China access to American data.

It is important to note that the use of TikTok on government-owned smartphones is currently prohibited for all federal employees.

Additionally, the video content creation app has already been prohibited in 28 states on devices provided by the states.

It can be remembered that Last month, President Joe Biden approved a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package that included a provision prohibiting the use of the app on any device used by the executive branch.

However, this provision did not affect members of Congress or their staff despite concerns of high risk due to a number of security issues across the government.

TikTok Pushes Back Against The US Legislation

Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, alerted the federal government of the United States that China might utilize TikTok to manipulate or control users' devices.

At the Josh Rosenthal Education Fund Lecture last month, he discussed the issue and informed the students that TikTok poses a national security risk.

According to Wray, China can exploit TikTok's recommendation algorithm to trick or persuade users, gather user information "for traditional espionage operations," and use the app for "malicious cyber activity."

In recent months, at least 20 public institutions have also taken action to block access to TikTok on school computers, mobile devices, and when using school WiFi, Gizmodo details.

However, Sen. Hawley's planned nationwide TikTok ban is not being implemented properly, according to a spokeswoman for the app.

"Senator Hawley's call for a total ban of TikTok takes a piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like data security, privacy, and online harms," the spokesperson claims.

TikTok hopes that Wray will concentrate his efforts on initiatives to address those problems holistically rather than claiming that outlawing a single service would answer all of his concerns or make Americans any safer.

It is important to note that concerns about national security have been discussed by TikTok and the US Committee on Foreign Investment for two years.

This involves "corporate governance, content recommendation and moderation, data security, and system access" in order to prevent the platform from being manipulated, the spokesperson adds.