Although both the Republicans and the Democrats in the United States don’t agree on many things, they certainly agree on the prospect of banning more Chinese-based technologies in the country as the relationship between Beijing and Washington gets worse.
The latest is that two US senators are said to be planning to introduce legislation this week which is targeted at banning or at least prohibiting foreign technology products such as the popular short-form video-sharing platform, TikTok.
This was made known by Senator Mark Warner on Sunday. Warner is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and he made it known that the Chinese-owned TikTok would be “one of the potentials” for review under the bill.
This isn’t the first time that TikTok will be facing a potential ban in the United States as it got under massive pressure under the previous administration of Donald Trump when the company was pressured to be sold off to an American corporation.
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TikTok in fact made a lot of changes to please the demands of the American government such as moving US-based user databases to the US and selling off some hares to American corporations.
The new bill continues to place the Chinese social media platform in tight corners as the American government continues to argue that data about US users can end up in the hands of the Chinese government. This was the same premise that got Huawei ousted from the US market and then the global market altogether.
In fact, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee voted on Wednesday to allow President Joe Biden the authority to ban TikTok.
The government also warned all its agencies to ensure that social media app is deleted from their government-issued devices and systems. And as of now, over 30 states in the country as well as other countries such as Canada and the EU have also banned the use of TikTok on government-issued devices.
According to Warner, his concerns were that TikTok could potentially become a propaganda tool for the Chinese government due to the kinds of videos it sends to its users.
He said the bill he plans to introduce “would say, in terms of foreign technology coming into America, we’ve got to have a systematic approach to make sure we can ban or prohibit it when necessary.”
He also added that he planned to introduce that legislation this week with Republican Senator, John Thune.
An announcement about the situation is expected to be made as soon as Tuesday. Details about the proposed bill were not available on Sunday. A spokesman for Thune did not immediately respond to questions about the plan.
