US lawmakers introduce bipartisan legislation to ban Chinese app TikTok

US Senator Marco Rubio introduced bipartisan legislation to ban the Chinese social media platform TikTok from operating in the United States

US Senator Marco Rubio on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation to ban the Chinese social media platform TikTok from operating in the United States while Congressmen Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives, the office of the senator said in a press release.

"US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced bipartisan legislation to ban TikTok from operating in the United States," Rubio's office said in a statement. "US Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) introduced companion legislation in the US House of Representatives."

Senator Rubio said the federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok.

"We know it's used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People's Republic of China. There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a CCP-puppet company. It is time to ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good," he added.

The legislation is called the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act) and is expected to protect Americans by blocking and prohibiting all transactions from any social media company in China, among other countries.

The bill also requires the US President to block and prohibit all transactions in all property and interests in property of social media companies with more than 1 million users located in Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.

According to the release, the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, is required by Chinese law to make the application's data available to the Chinese Communist Party, which poses a risk of TikTok being used as a spying tool.

Launched by ByteDance in 2018, TikTok has since become one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide with more than 1 billion monthly active users.

Earlier, the previous Trump administration attempted to ban TikTok as well as the Chinese media platform WeChat in 2020, to protect Americans' privacy. The Biden administration did not continue to fight for the implementation of their predecessors' initiative and only recently resumed criticism of TikTok.