RESTRICT Act authors blame TikTok for attacks on proposed restrictions
Christopher Hutton
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The authors of a leading bill for restricting TikTok said the growing resistance to their measure is because the Chinese company is campaigning against them.
Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Mark Warner (D-VA) defended their bill, the RESTRICT Act, in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. The bill in question was filed with more than a dozen co-sponsors and is considered the most supported piece of TikTok legislation in Congress to date. The RESTRICT Act would give the Commerce Department additional powers to regulate tech business deals related to nations of concern, such as China or Iran.
Critics, though, have said the bill would infringe on free speech and crimp civil liberties. Thune and Warner said that the criticism was driven by a campaign by TikTok.
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“In the few weeks since we introduced this bipartisan bill, and in the days following TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony before a congressional committee, an intense, well-funded lobbying campaign from the Chinese company has misrepresented our bill in bad faith,” Thune and Warner wrote. “It isn’t hard to figure out why: There’s money to be made by allowing TikTok to continue its current operations in the U.S. and not much to be made by protecting American citizens from national-security threats.”
The two senators dismissed allegations that the bill could be used to target individual users for simple actions such as using a virtual private network, a device used to hide one’s internet location by directing traffic through a separate server.
“This bipartisan bill is focused on foreign companies that operate in six specific adversary nations (China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela). The Commerce secretary would be able to expand the list, but Congress would retain the authority to override any potential decision,” they wrote.
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Thune and Warner are not the only ones that have introduced rival legislation to ban TikTok. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) have proposed outright bans of TikTok for months over its data collection practices and relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.
While a House version of the RESTRICT Act has not been filed yet, a small group of Democrats has come out as defenders of the app. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Jamaal Bowman all have spoken out against a straight ban of TikTok
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before Congress two weeks ago. Lawmakers on both sides questioned the Singapore-based executive over the company’s practices.