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There’s a Bill in the Senate to Ban TikTok in the U.S.

There’s a Bill in the Senate to Ban TikTok in the U.S.

We knew this would happen eventually.

Sen. Josh Hawley announced or his week that he would be introducing legislation to ban TikTok in the United States. The app is already been facing a ban that would prevent federal employees from using or downloading the app on government-owned devices. And recently, many public universities have announced bans of the app on their campuses.

In a statement on Twitter, Hawley said, “TikTok is China’s backdoor into Americans’ lives. It threatens our children’s privacy as well as their mental health. Now I will introduce legislation to ban it nationwide.”

TikTok, however, has pushed back against Hawley’s claims, with spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter saying, “Sen. Hawley’s call for a total ban of TikTok takes a piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like data security, privacy and online harms. We hope that he will focus his energies on efforts to address those issues holistically, rather than pretending that banning a single service would solve any of the problems he’s concerned about or make Americans any safer.”

The debate over TikTok’s presence in the U.S. has been ongoing for some time now, with concerns being raised about the app’s data privacy practices and the potential for it to be used as a tool for Chinese government propaganda. However, it’s worth noting that TikTok has repeatedly denied these allegations and has even gone as far as to open a “transparency center” in the U.S. to address these concerns.

Despite these efforts, Hawley’s announcement has reignited the conversation around TikTok and its role in American society. Many have criticized his decision to push for a ban, arguing that it’s a knee-jerk reaction that fails to take into account the app’s cultural significance and the millions of Americans who use it daily.

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