Congress rolls out new bill allowing nationwide TikTok ban

A TikTok ban is closer than it’s ever been following the Tuesday introduction of a bill that would make it easier for the Biden administration to restrict access to the popular video sharing app. 

The bipartisan bill, led by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), would empower the secretary of Commerce to ban foreign technologies and companies from operating in the US if they present a threat to national security. While TikTok is not explicitly named in the bill text, the measure covers companies in adversarial countries including China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.  

“Today, the threat that everyone is talking about is TikTok, and how it could enable surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party, or facilitate the spread of malign influence campaigns in the U.S. Before TikTok, however, it was Huawei and ZTE, which threatened our nation’s telecommunications networks,” Warner said in a statement Tuesday. “We need a comprehensive, risk-based approach that proactively tackles sources of potentially dangerous technology before they gain a foothold in America, so we aren’t playing Whac-A-Mole and scrambling to catch up once they’re already ubiquitous.”