The White House endorsed a bipartisan bill that could give the president authority to ban or force a sale of TikTok, support that could hasten its passage and break a deadlock over how to handle privacy concerns around the the popular Chinese-owned app.
Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, are among co-sponsors of the legislation. The bill introduced Tuesday would give the president the ability to force the sale of foreign-owned technologies, applications, software or e-commerce platforms if they present a national security threat to U.S. users.
It doesn’t mention Beijing-based Bytedance Ltd.’s TikTok by name but the video-sharing app, which has about 100 million users in the U.S., is the clear target.
“We look forward to continue working with both Democrats and Republicans on this bill, and urge Congress to act quickly to send it to the president’s desk,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.
This is the first time the Biden administration has weighed in on legislation to deal with the app, which the White House says poses national security risks. Warner and his co-sponsors have worked closely with the administration for months in the lead-up to the bill’s introduction.
A bill like Warner’s could solve a major dilemma for the Biden administration. For months, the administration has been trying to come to a national-security deal with TikTok that would limit China’s ability to access U.S. user data. But that process has stalled amid concerns that it doesn’t sufficiently address the threats posed.
New ‘tools’
“These risks are not going away and unfortunately our tools to date have been limited,” Warner told a briefing Tuesday. “We are going to create a new set of authorities.”
TikTok’s opponents in Congress have rejected the company’s assurances that its Chinese owner doesn’t have access to U.S. user data, including viewing patterns and geolocation. In addition, reports that TikTok promotes or hides certain content has raised questions about whether Chinese authorities could influence what content American users see.
The bill would still need to go through a Senate committee, and it’s unclear where the measure ranks among Chuck Schumer’s priorities. As Senate majority leader, he determines whether it would come to the floor for a vote. But anti-China sentiment crosses party lines in Congress, and senators from both parties said Tuesday they were united on the issue.
“We’re very united on this topic” Senator Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, told reporters. He said the U.S. needs to “bring all aspects of American power and policy” to the China challenge.
The growing backlash has had TikTok waging an all-out charm offensive globally for months. To drum up goodwill and defend its data protection and content moderation policies in Washington, executives have enlisted a star-studded group of lobbyists to engage with more than 100 congressional offices. In the second quarter of last year, TikTok spent $2.1 million on lobbying on issues including children’s privacy, content moderation and antitrust — the most to date.
TikTok has presented a security plan called Project Texas that pledges to insulate the company’s U.S. operation from Chinese influence. The plan includes an independent board of directors to oversee data security, third-party vetting and a partnership with Oracle Corp. to store user data and audit the platform’s algorithms.
“The goal here is to have a massive amount of oversight,” Will Farrell, who leads TikTok’s U.S. Data Security team, said at a conference in Washington on Monday. “So you don’t have to take our word for it.”
