Federal agencies hit deadline to rid TikTok from government devices
Ryan King
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Federal agencies have hit the deadline to comply with the Biden administration’s directive to get TikTok off of government systems and devices.
Last month, the White House gave agencies 30 days to affirm that the popular China-affiliated short-form video app was not on any government systems amid mounting national security concerns over its parent company ByteDance and its links to the Chinese Communist Party.
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Other governments have undertaken similar measures, including Canada, Taiwan, the European Union, and a bevy of states. The White House issued a memo outlining the ban on Feb. 27, Reuters reported. Agencies were also given 90 days to deal with TikTok by IT services and 120 days to ban its use in new solicitations, per the report.
As agencies bump up against the deadline for the ban, Congress is mulling multiple pieces of legislation to ban the use of TikTok nationally.
On the Senate side, there is a proposal from Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) to give the Biden administration power to ban the social media app. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has floated a proposal to ban it outright. Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on TikTok, scrutinizing its ties to China.
China has a policy of civil-military fusion that has fueled concerns that the CCP could extract U.S. data from TikTok and turn it into a vessel for Chinese spying.
During the hearing last week, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew downplayed the company’s ties to Beijing. He admitted that ByteDance might have some access to U.S. data, but he highlighted a plan dubbed Project Texas to address those concerns.
A deluge of TikTok influencers converged on the Capitol last week to rally against a ban, but their influence appeared meager with legislators.
The head of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has been reviewing TikTok. The White House has underscored national security concerns over TikTok, but it has not issued a full-throated endorsement of a national ban on it.
“The President really, as you rightly noted, has been very consistent about our concerns in terms of Big Tech, and particularly some social media applications, and that includes TikTok,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a briefing earlier this month. “With the CFIUS review — underway, there’s not a whole lot that I can talk about right now.”
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Support for a national ban has been largely bipartisan, though some dissenters have raised free speech concerns.
Progressive Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), as well as conservative Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), have come out against a national ban.