A congressional committee has advanced a bill that could prevent app stores from carrying the popular social media app TikTok, effectively banning the app from operating in the U.S.

Austin

Congress is moving forward with legislation aimed at targeting TikTok, a widely used social media platform. A specific congressional committee has successfully pushed forward a bill that may lead to app stores being unable to feature TikTok. This development suggests an impending ban of TikTok's operations within the United States, should the bill become law.



Congress advances bill to effectively ban TikTok in the U.S.

Right now, TikTok is operated by a company called ByteDance. It's one that U.S. officials warn China's Communist Party has its hands all over. The bipartisan bill aims to protect Americans' user data. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy is spearheading the passage of the bill and says essentially this is an ultimatum. The bill wouldn't technically ban TikTok, but it would remove it from American app stores if TikTok chooses not to break away from its parent company. We spoke with Krishnamoorthy after the bill passed the committee today, and he shares an alarming example of what TikTok pushed to users just today in the hours leading up to that hearing. TikTok actually sent a message to all of its users requiring them to press a button that would cause them to call their member of Congress before they could scroll through the rest of their content on their phone. Well, guess what? The people that ended up calling into our offices were minor children without the permission of their parents. And some of them called and basically said, what is a congressman? We cannot have the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, own and control such an influential social media app. Meanwhile, the company and some lawmakers feel that this would be government overreach. TikTok just sending us a statement minutes ago saying that the government is, quote, attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression, unquote. Reporting live downtown, Casey Cronus, Fox 32 Chicago.

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