Senate, White House push new bipartisan bill that could ban TikTok

A bipartisan group of 12 senators — buoyed by a timely endorsement from the White House — introduced a bill on Tuesday that would give the federal government new powers to restrict, and potentially ban, technologies emanating from China and five other nations deemed to be U.S. adversaries.

And while the RESTRICT Act isn’t technically aimed just at TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app is clearly top of mind for the bill’s chief sponsors, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and John Thune (R-S.D.).

“It's safe to assume that if the [Chinese Communist Party] is willing to lie about its spy balloon and cover up the origins of the worst pandemic in 100 years, they'll lie about using Tiktok to spy on American citizens,” Thune told reporters at a Tuesday press conference attended by Warner and six other senators from both parties.

It’s not the first bill that seeks to tackle the perceived national security threat posed by TikTok, which is owned by Chinese-based company ByteDance.

But it almost certainly has the most momentum of any legislation introduced on the issue so far. It’s the Senate’s first bipartisan effort on TikTok this legislative cycle. It’s being pushed by two of the most powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill — Warner is chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Thune is the Senate minority whip.

And according to a statement issued during Tuesday’s presser by national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the White House is also on board.

“This bill presents a systematic framework for addressing technology-based threats to the security and safety of Americans,” Sullivan wrote. He said the RESTRICT Act would strengthen the administration’s ability to address both “discrete risks posed by individual transactions” as well as “systemic risks” posed by multiple transactions “involving countries of concern in sensitive technology sectors.” Sullivan urged lawmakers “to act quickly to send it to the President’s desk.”

The RESTRICT ACT is somewhat similar to legislation that advanced last week out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee without Democratic support. Like the House bill, it would alter a portion of U.S. law known as the Berman amendments, which allow for the free flow of “informational material” from hostile countries. In 2020, TikTok invoked those amendments as part of its successful court effort to block an attempted Trump administration ban. Warner said his bill would create a “rules-based process” that would short-circuit the Berman amendments and allow the president to restrict — or even ban — foreign apps like TikTok, as well as other technologies.

Unlike last week’s House bill, however, the RESTRICT Act does not require the Commerce Department or White House to impose bans or sanctions. It would instead task federal agencies with reviewing potential threats posed by tech emanating from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba or Venezuela. Any further restrictions, said Warner, are up to the Commerce Department.

Warner said the RESTRICT Act is meant to improve Washington’s “whack-a-mole approach” to risky foreign technologies over the last several years — including efforts to ban telecommunications equipment from Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE, as well as actions taken against Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs. “We lack, at this moment in time, a holistic, interagency, whole-of-government approach,” Warner said.

The senator explained that the RESTRICT Act would apply to existing hardware, software and mobile apps, as well as future AI tools, fintech, quantum communications and e-commerce products.

The bill’s introduction comes after more than a year of discussion within the Biden administration on whether to ban TikTok, and how to limit the ability of foreign applications like it to access Americans’ data. That includes an ongoing national security review of TikTok at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which was begun under the Trump administration but has stalled in the Biden administration amid conflict between national security and economic officials. The impasse has delayed a separate executive order on foreign data collection planned for over a year, and the administration still has not finished a separate Commerce Department rule on information and communications technology.

ByteDance has long denied any association with Beijing’s surveillance or propaganda operations. Its critics, however, point to provisions in Chinese law that require companies based in-country to comply with any and all requests from state intelligence services.

In a statement, TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said the Biden administration “does not need additional authority from Congress to address national security concerns about TikTok: it can approve the deal negotiated with CFIUS over two years that it has spent the last six months reviewing.” She called a ban on TikTok “a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide.”

Oberwetter’s argument is similar to the one made last week by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. At the time, Meeks urged his colleagues to wait for CFIUS and warned against banning TikTok “without consideration of the very real soft power, free speech and economic consequences.”

But on Tuesday, Warner suggested many of his Democratic colleagues in the House will back the RESTRICT Act. “I can assure you that I’ve actually had very positive conversations with House Democratic colleagues who have become very interested in supporting this bill,” he said.

Despite surging bipartisan support for the RESTRICT Act, getting the bill to the president’s desk won’t be easy. TikTok regularly garners over 100 million monthly users in the United States. If the legislation is framed as a “TikTok ban bill,” that could make it tougher for vulnerable lawmakers to risk constituent ire by nuking their favorite online platform.

“This is a popular application,” Warner said, who noted that a ban would also likely trigger First Amendment concerns. “I think it’s going to be incumbent upon the government to show its cards, in terms of how this is a threat.”