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The
legislation would block all transactions from any social media
company in or under the influence of China and Russia, Rubio's
office said in a news release, adding that a companion bill in
the U.S. House of Representatives was sponsored by Republican
congressman Mike Gallagher and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi.
"It is troubling that rather than encouraging the administration
to conclude its national security review of TikTok, some members
of Congress have decided to push for a politically-motivated ban
that will do nothing to advance the national security of the
United States," a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement,
adding that the company would continue to brief members of
Congress on the plans that are "well underway" to "further
secure our platform in the United States."
The bill comes as scrutiny of TikTok has grown in Washington in
recent weeks, after a failed bid by the Trump administration to
ban the video-sharing app.
At a hearing last month, FBI Director Chris Wray said TikTok's
U.S. operations raise national security concerns, flagging the
risk that the Chinese government could harness it to influence
users or control their devices.
Alabama and Utah on Monday joined other U.S. states prohibiting
the use of TikTok on state government devices and computer
networks due to national security concerns.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump attempted to block new
users from downloading TikTok and ban other transactions that
would have effectively blocked the apps' use in the United
States but lost a series of court battles over the measure.
The U.S. government's Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States (CFIUS), a powerful national security body, in
2020 ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok because of fears that
U.S. user data could be passed on to China's communist
government.
CFIUS and TikTok have been in talks for months aiming to reach a
national security agreement to protect the data of TikTok's more
than 100 million users.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Jonathan Oatis,
Alexandra Hudson and Marguerita Choy)
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