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The
Senate last week voted on a bill sponsored by Republican Senator
Josh Hawley to bar federal employees from using the ByteDance-owned
short video app on government-owned devices. It was the latest
action by U.S. lawmakers to crack down on Chinese companies amid
national security fears.
The ban is in a massive omnibus measure to fund U.S. government
operations that is expected to be voted on this week. The bill
gives the White House Office of Management and Budget 60 days
"to develop standards and guidelines for executive agencies
requiring the removal" of TikTok from federal devices.
Reuters reported the proposed ban's expected inclusion in the
legislation earlier.
The proposal last week won the backing of House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.
TikTok has said the concerns are largely fueled by
misinformation. The legislation would not impact the more than
100 million Americans who use TikTok on private or company-owned
devices.
Many federal agencies, including the White House and the
Defense, Homeland Security and State departments, already ban
TikTok from government-owned devices.
Also Monday, state agencies in Louisiana and West Virginia
became the latest to ban the use of TikTok on government devices
over concern that China could use it to track Americans and
censor content.
Some 19 of the 50 U.S. states have now at least partially
blocked access on government computers to TikTok. Most of the
restrictions came within the past two weeks.
In 2020, Republican then-President Donald Trump attempted to
block new users from downloading TikTok and to ban other
transactions that would have effectively blocked the app's use
in the United States but lost a series of court battles.
The U.S. government Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States (CFIUS), a national security body, has for months
sought to reach a national security agreement to protect the
data of U.S. TikTok users, but it appears no deal will be
reached before year's end.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jacqueline Wong,
Stephen Coates & Shri Navaratnam)
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