Senate bill would ban TikTok from government devices

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday night unanimously passed a bill to ban all federal employees from using TikTok on government-owned devices. State and federal policymakers share the growing concern that ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, could share American users’ data with the Chinese government. In 2017, China passed a law requiring Chinese companies to cooperate with its intelligence investigations. In the United States, more than a dozen states have already banned TikTok from state-owned devices, according to GovTech.com. The U.S. military, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security have enacted similar restrictions. The bill needs to pass the House of Representatives before the end of the current congressional session before heading to President Joe Biden for a signature.

Is there any other legislation that could control app use? Senator Marco Rubio, R-Florida, on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation that seeks to ban TikTok completely from use in the United States. If approved, the policy would block all transactions between American users and social media companies based in, or under the influence of, countries considered foreign adversaries. These nations include China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

Dig deeper: Read Kyle Ziemnick’s report in The Stew about the Trump administration’s attempts to ban TikTok.