Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-VA) said he plans to introduce broad bipartisan legislation this week that would help “ban or prohibit” foreign technology coming into the United States, including the Chinese social media app TikTok.
Warner told Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream that he will be introducing a broad bipartisan piece of legislation this week with Sen. John Thune (R-SD) that would create a “systemic approach” to ban or prohibit foreign technology coming into America when it is necessary.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) talks to reporters. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The Senate Intelligence Committee chair noted that one of the potential targets they aim at is TikTok.
“They are taking data from Americans, not keeping it safe, but what worries me more with TikTok is that this could be a propaganda tool. The kind of videos you see would promote ideological issues,” Warner stated, while acknowledging that over 100 million Americans are on the popular video-sharing app 90 minutes a day.
“If you look at what TikTok shows to the Chinese kids, which is all about science and engineering, versus what our kids see, there’s a radical difference,” he added.
Warner’s bill comes after the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee voted along party lines (24 to 16) to approve legislation last Wednesday that would give President Joe Biden the power to ban the Chinese social media app TikTok and other apps nationwide.
President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
For this bill, if it passes the Republican-controlled House and moves over to the Senate, where the Democrat-controlled upper chamber would have to pass some type of version of it, which some Democrats will more than likely challenge. Then, if it were to pass Congress, President Joe Biden would still need to decide if he would sign it or veto it.
This all comes as Chinese-linked platforms, such as TikTok, have received a lot of attention for being a problem for the privacy of Americans and a national security threat. Last week, the Biden White House also issued a directive that gave all government agencies 30 days to eliminate the Chinese social media app TikTok, which is now banned by law from any U.S. government devices.
The Biden administration made the directive after the legislation passed last year, giving the administration 60 days to enact the law after there had been growing national security concerns over what data the Chinese social media app collects and who can access the data.
TikTok is no stranger to challenges from U.S. officials. Numerous governors have announced they would ban TikTok and other Chinese-linked companies from being on state government devices. Additionally, in 2020, then-President Donald Trump’s administration tried to ban TikTok, which resulted in the Chinese social media app’s parent company divesting the platform to an American company.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.