Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) is throwing his weight behind bipartisan legislation designed to facilitate the sale of TikTok, separating the social-media giant from its Chinese parent company.
McConnell spoke on the Senate floor Monday afternoon and expressed support for legislation passed by the House last month requiring Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American buyer or face a ban.
“America’s greatest strategic rival is threatening our security right here on U.S. soil in tens of millions of Americans homes,” McConnell said. “I’m speaking, of course, of TikTok.”
“Today, 170 million Americans are active users of a social media platform that the People’s Republic of China treats as a tool of surveillance and of propaganda,” he continued. “Divesting Beijing-influenced TikTok would land squarely within established constitutional precedent & would begin to turn back the tide of an enormous threat to America’s children & to our nation’s prospects.”
House lawmakers voted 352-65 to pass the TikTok legislation because of concerns surrounding ByteDance’s extensive links to the Chinese Communist Party and China’s ability to use TikTok as a propaganda weapon. The office of the Director of National Intelligence warned in its most recent threat assessment of the possibility TikTok could be deployed by China for propaganda purposes.
A study conducted last year by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute found TikTok’s promotion and demotion of geopolitical hashtags aligned with the Chinese government’s interests.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) offered last week to work with his Republican colleagues on advancing the TikTok bill as it makes its way through the Senate. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the bipartisan deal, even though his presidential campaign is currently active on the platform.
TikTok is used by an estimated 170 million Americans, particularly those in the Millennial and Generation Z cohorts, and its addictive short-form video algorithm has drawn considerable scrutiny for its potency and deleterious mental-health effects.
Senators Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Mark Warner (D., Va.) have voiced enthusiastic support for the bill, while Senator Mike Lee (R., Utah) and Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) have expressed skepticism of the TikTok legislation over perceived First Amendment concerns. TikTok is fighting back against the legislation through a well-funded lobbying operation and scare tactics directed toward its most active users.
Former president Donald Trump expressed opposition to the TikTok measure for supposedly empowering Facebook. His old running mate, former vice president Mike Pence, and his political organization are pushing Schumer to get behind the TikTok legislation. The Trump administration previously attempted to ban TikTok banned unless ByteDance divested from the platform.