Among the many pieces of legislation that was attached to a must-pass spending bill that passed Friday (December 23) was one banning TikTok from government devices, but that does not go far enough says one government official focused on communications issues.
While the legislation was good news for Federal Communications Commission member Brendan Carr, who has been a big critic of the social-media platform because of its ties to the Chinese government, the Republican said that more still needs to be done.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), which decides whether such investment is a national security threat has been debating whether to continue to allow TikTok to operate in the country and struck a preliminary agreement with the company to allow it to do so based on specific mitigation measures.
Also: More Legislators Call for TikTok Investigation
Carr says cutting such a deal, mitigation or not, would be “a serious mistake.”
Carr argues that it was in TikTok's best interests to be on its best behavior during the negotiations over that preliminary deal, yet it has allegedly surveilled the locations of reporters working on stories about TikTok's potential security risks and ran "misinformation" campaigns about candidates in the recent midterm elections. It even tried to get details on the Oracle servers that would be used as part of the mitigation efforts, according to Forbes.
“It is time to complete the CFIUS review,” Carr said. “Every day that this drags on is another day that Americans are left exposed to the unique threats posed by TikTok.”
Elsewhere on the TikTok front, a bill was introduced in early December that would take the decision out of CFIUS' hands and ban TikTok from the U.S.
The creatively named Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act) was introduced by a pair of Republicans, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (Wis.), and Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois.
TikTok has been in Washington's sites as part of a larger concern both with social media privacy in general and, in this case, with technology/operations allied with China in particular.
Back in 2020, Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who are pretty far apart on the political spectrum, agreed that the Department of Justice should investigate both Zoom and TikTok for “reported violations of Americans’ civil liberties and [for] their close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).” Both backed the just-passed bill to ban TikTok from government devices. ■
