Proposed US bipartisan bill could lead to TikTok ban

A group of U.S. senators unveiled new bipartisan legislation that would give the administration new powers when it comes to restricting or even banning foreign-based technologies. In particular, the bill could be used to ban TikTok in the U.S. if the administration considers that it causes national security threats.

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and Senator John Thune (R-SD) are leading the charge with support from 10 other senators. If the bill passes, the Department of Commerce will be able to “review, prevent, and mitigate” software, hardware or services that come from foreign adversaries.

The bill text names some of these adversarial nations — China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela. The maximum restriction would be a ban.

“Today, the threat that everyone is talking about is TikTok, and how it could enable surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party, or facilitate the spread of malign influence campaigns in the U.S. Before TikTok, however, it was Huawei and ZTE, which threatened our nation’s telecommunications networks. And before that, it was Russia’s Kaspersky Lab, which threatened the security of government and corporate devices,” Senator Warner said in a statement.

According to him, that’s why the U.S. needs a new systemic approach to foreign threats “so we aren’t playing Whac-A-Mole,” he said. While the new RESTRICT Act could potentially be used against a lot of different foreign companies, nearly all senators working on this bill mention TikTok as the main threat of the day.