Chinese-owned TikTok will be banned on ALL government phones amid a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill – but efforts to regulate the tech are failing after a $230 million lobbying campaign
- TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is likely to face a government-wide ban under a new measure
- The popular video-sharing app is already banned by several US agencies, including the Pentagon, the State Department and Homeland Security
- TikTok is working with the US Committee on Foreign Investments on a regulatory regime that would give the US veto power over its board of directors, executives
- At least 19 states have issued similar bans from TikTok for device issues by state governments to their employees
Chinese-owned TikTok will be banned from all government devices under a measure included in the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill lawmakers are expected to pass this week.
The company, which has already been disallowed by several agencies including the Pentagon, the State Department, the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, has faced a barrage of criticism over the idea that any data it collects is linked to the Chinese government could be shared.
For its part, TikTok has always maintained that it protects users’ data and would not share it with China’s communist government – despite recent revelations contradicting their statements.
The inclusion of the ban comes after the Senate passed the statewide ban measure separately last week. Additionally, at least 19 states have issued similar bans from TikTok for device issues by state governments to their employees.
Chinese-owned TikTok will be banned from all government devices under a measure included in the omnibus spending bill lawmakers have to pass this week
“TikTok will soon be BANNED on all government devices,” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri tweeted Tuesday.
TikTok, which has over a billion monthly active users and is owned by China-based company ByteDance, has become hugely popular around the world, especially among coveted younger users in America.
“People are realizing that China is a hostile power,” James Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Washington Post.
Lewis noted that China has banned US-developed apps like Facebook and Twitter. “TikTok is implicated in this – guilty or not,” he added.
Since 2019, the video-sharing app has been negotiating an agreement with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a government group that can cancel deal deals if they raise national security concerns.
Four people with knowledge of these discussions told the Post that TikTok has agreed to separate decision-making over its US operations from ByteDance and to give US regulators veto power over the appointment of the company’s proposed three-member board of directors and its top executives .
At least 19 states have issued similar bans from TikTok for device issues by state governments to their employees. For its part, TikTok has always maintained that it protects users’ data and would not share it with China’s communist government – despite recent revelations contradicting their claims
The sources also told the Post that US officials would set the standards for hiring TikTok’s American staff, which would subject the company to far more aggressive government oversight than any US tech company.
Silicon Valley companies like Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon and their hired lobbyists managed to prevent major privacy and antitrust measures from being included in the massive year-end spending bill.
The industry has spent more than $100 million on ads opposing such laws since early 2021. They’ve also spent an additional $130 million on advertising in key swing states.
Two measures that could have been included in the expenditure account were more targeted. One would increase the protection of children’s privacy online and the other would limit the gatekeeper powers of companies like Apple and Google over smartphone apps.
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