The Senate unanimously voted to ban the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok on government devices last night due to national security concerns.
According to the Epoch Times:
The “No TikTok on Government Devices Act,” was first introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in April 2021 and will essentially follow up on steps already taken by the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and The Transportation Security Administration to ban the video application from being used on federal government devices.
Specifically, the bill requires the Office of Management and Budget to develop standards for executive agencies that require TikTok and any successor application by its owner to be pulled from any device issued by the U.S. or a government corporation.
The bill does include exceptions for law enforcement activities, national security interests, and security researchers in some circumstances.
Although it passed the Senate unanimously on Wednesday, Hawley’s bill will still need to be passed by the House and signed into law by President Joe Biden.
Senator Marco Rubio introduced bipartisan legislation on Tuesday to ban TikTok in the U.S. entirely with Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher and Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi. President Donald Trump had previously banned TikTok in 2020 via executive order, but that attempt was blocked by the courts.
While opposed to a national ban on TikTok in the past, some Democrats are finally warming on it.
Democrat Senator Mark Warner admitted in a recent interview with Recode that “As painful as it is for me to say, if Donald Trump was right and we could’ve taken action then, that’d have been a heck of a lot easier than trying to take action in November of 2022. The sooner we bite the bullet, the better.”
Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
Don't miss The Dan Bongino Show
