A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation that would give the president the authority to review and potentially ban or force a sale of the popular video-sharing app TikTok on national security grounds if passed into law.
(Bloomberg) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation that would give the president the authority to review and potentially ban or force a sale of the popular video-sharing app TikTok on national security grounds if passed into law.
The bill, sponsored by Democrat Mark Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Republican John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, would give President Joe Biden the ability to force the sale of foreign-owned technologies, applications, software or e-commerce platforms if they present a national security threat to US users.
The legislation doesn’t identify TikTok, owned by China’s Bytedance Ltd., by name. It would also give the president the ability to craft a workaround that addresses concerns while stopping short of an outright ban or sale.
“These risks are not going away and unfortunately our tools to date have been limited,” Warner told a briefing on Tuesday after unveiling the bill. “We are going to create a new set of authorities.”
While most senators on Tuesday said they take the national security risk seriously, several Democrats said Congress should also be concerned about how US platforms collect data. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden and Georgia’s Jon Ossoff said Congress should focus on comprehensive data privacy regulation, although no bill along those lines has gotten traction in the Senate.
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