US lawmakers table bipartisan bill to ban TikTok in the US over national security concerns

US lawmakers in House and Senate on Tuesday unveiled legislation to effectively ban TikTok heeding previous warnings from FBI director and cybersecurity experts. Speculations arose that app was used by China for alleged spying on global citizens.  bill would "protect Americans by blocking and prohibiting all transactions from any social media company in, or under influence of, China, Russia, and several or foreign countries of concern," lawmakers stated in a news release.

TikTok sells data to ruling Chinese Communist Party: Lawmakers

legislation was brought by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., with a companion measure introduced in House by Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill. It was anunced in House by top Republican on Senate Intelligence Committee, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. He accused TikTok's parent company, ByteDance of selling  TikTok data to ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. bill was named as  A.N.T.I.S.O.C.I.A.L.C.C.P. Act.

"From FBI Director to FCC Commissioners to cybersecurity experts, everyone has me clear risk of TikTok being used to spy on Americans," Rubio's office said in a statement.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also shot warnings about national security as she ted that  app presents “legitimate national security concerns." app TikTok is alrey banned in India over national security concerns. Indian government said in an anuncement, at time of ban, that  decision was me "to protect data and privacy of its 1.3 billion citizens" and to disrupt  techlogy that was "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in unauthorized servers outside India".

FBI Director Chris Wray also previously raised concerns about TikTok being a national security threat as he warned that popular Chinese video-sharing app “that doesn't share our values" was used for alleged spying by Chinese government. Wray said that Chinese authorities have  ability to control app's algorithm, “which allows m to manipulate content and if y want to, to use it for influence operations." Furrmore, Wray accused China of collecting user's data and personal information via app to fulfill its what he described as tritional espion operations. Trump ministration in 2020 h threatened to ban app and ordered parent firm ByteDance to sell TikTok to a US company in order to continue operation. 

"All of se things are in hands of a government that doesn't share our values, and that has a mission that's very much at odds with what's in best interests of United States. That should concern us,” Wray said at a conference at University of Michigan's Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy.