TikTok is BANNED on US House of Representatives-issued devices
TikTok has been banned from all devices owned and managed by US House of Representatives in a move that mimics a law that will soon prohibit the Chinese-owned app from all government devices.
Lawmakers and their staff received an email Tuesday mandating they delete the Chinese-owned video app because it is considered ‘high risk due to a number of security issues.’
The memo, obtained by Reuters, tells House staff that they are ‘not allowed to download the TikTok app on any House mobile devices.
‘If you have the TikTok app on your House mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it.’
All devices used and managed by US House Representatives and their staff are banned from downloading TikTok
Approximately 19 states have at least partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to track Americans and censor content.
The announcement comes as the $1.7 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill was passed last week, which will fund the US government through September 20, 2023 and includes a provision to ban the app on federally managed devices.
The bill will take effect once President Joe Biden signs the legislation into law.
‘With the passage of the Omnibus that banned TikTok on executive branch devices, the CAO worked with the Committee on House Administration to implement a similar policy for the House,’ a spokesperson for the Chief Administrative Officer told Reuters on Tuesday.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), who introduced the bill in Senate, said Chinese law meant the app’s owner, ByteDance, was required to hand data to the Chinese Communist Party.
‘The federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok,’ he said.
‘This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day. We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China.’
The bill includes several sections that ban operations by any social media company in or under the influence of China and Russia.
These include: Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act).
However, the ban on TikTok has been a long-held discussion among government officials.
In August 2020, Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok and the Chinese chat app WeChat in the US.
The order stated TikTok’s ‘data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.’
President Joe Biden last year revoked executive orders from Trump.
Biden produced a new executive order that nixed the unimplemented ban on TikTok and called for ‘an evidence-based analysis to address the risks’ from internet applications controlled by foreign entities.
The announcement comes as the $1.7 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill was passed last week, which will fund the US government through September 20, 2023 and includes a provision to ban the app on federally managed devices
Brendan Carr, the commissioner of the FCC, urged Apple and Google in June to remove TikTok from their app stores
In June 2022, Brendan Carr, commissioner of the FCC, posted an open letter on Twitter urging Apple and Google to remove the video-sharing platform ‘from their app stores for its pattern of surreptitious data practices.’
Carr included a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook, expressing why TikTok needs to be removed, citing a report from Buzzfeed that ‘shed fresh light on the serious national security threats posed by TikTok.
The open letter, shared on Twitter, cites a report from Buzzfeed that highlights leaked audio from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings that reveal China-based employees have repeatedly accessed US user data
The report highlights leaked audio from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings that reveal China-based employees have repeatedly accessed US user data.
‘It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being combined with Beijing’s unchecked access it that sensitive data, Carr wrote in the letter.
‘But it is also clear that TikTok’s pattern of conduct and misrepresentation regarding the unfettered access that persons in Beijing have to sensitive US user data puts it out of compliance with the policies that both of your companies require every app to adhere to as a condition of remaining available on your app store.’
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