Mark Warner , would empower the US government to ban or force the sale of foreign-owned technologies, applications, software or e-commerce platforms that are deemed a threat to national security.
Concerns about TikTok were first brought to the national stage by former President Donald Trump, who declared the app a threat to national security and issued a now-defunct executive order preventing Americans from doing business with the company.
More than 12 higher education systems, including the University of Georgia and University of Texas at Austin, have blocked the app from campus networks or from devices owned by the schools.
Federal lawmakers are currently considering legislation that would ban TikTok from all US devices, a tactic that has raised freedom of speech concerns.
The app is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., which has raised questions about the Chinese’s government’s ability to access to user data, including that of Americans.
TikTok opened a transparency center at its Los Angeles headquarters, which lets visitors see how its content moderation, algorithms, and other tools work.
ITikTok spent at least $259,000 on lobbying in California over the past two years, whereas no activity seems to exist in state lobbying records in prior years.
Indiana’s attorney general filed two complaints against TikTok in December 2022, citing child safety and data privacy concerns.
At the federal level, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued standards in late February directing agencies to identify and remove the app from government devices within 30 days.
To ensure government employees are not downloading or using TikTok, some states like Texas have directed agencies to “identify, track and control” state-owned devices and enable remote removal of any prohibited apps.
Access to TikTok on mobile app stores could be limited, too.