Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury and Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) Chairwoman Janet Yellen. He urged her to conclude CFIUS’ review of TikTok and to ban all ByteDance-controlled apps currently available to U.S. users, especially given the increase in anti-Israel, pro-Hamas content on the platform.
“TikTok—and its parent company ByteDance—are threats to American national security,” wrote Senator Hawley. “While data security issues are paramount, less often discussed is TikTok’s power to radically distort the world-picture that America’s young people encounter. Israel’s unfolding war with Hamas is a crucial test case. According to one poll, 51% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that Hamas’s murder of civilians was justified—a statistic notably different from other age cohorts. Analysts have attributed this disparity to the ubiquity of anti-Israel content on TikTok, where most young internet users get their information about the world.”
He continued, “This simply heightens the stakes of the TikTok question: the longer this app is allowed to operate in the U.S., the longer its Chinese Communist Party overseers will apparently be able to propagandize Americans.”
Background:
In March, Senator Hawley delivered remarks on the Senate floor and called for unanimous consent on his bill, the No TikTok on United States Devices Act, to ban TikTok in the United States, but it was objected to by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
In January, Senator Hawley introduced the No TikTok on United States Devices Act to prohibit TikTok from operating in the United States and ban commercial activity with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance.
In December 2022, Senator Hawley’s No TikTok on Government Devices Act was signed into law effectively banning the Chinese app on all federal devices – including those belonging to the Department of Defense.
Read the full letter here or below.
November 7, 2023
The Honorable Janet Yellen
Secretary
U.S. Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20220
Dear Secretary Yellen:
TikTok—and its parent company ByteDance—are threats to American national security. The popular video-sharing app harvests vast amounts of data from Americans’ personal devices, data which then flows overseas to our main geopolitical rival. Whistleblower testimony has revealed that China-based employees have full access to U.S. user data. And under Chinese law, ByteDance is required to make that data available to the Chinese Communist Party upon request.
We’ve known all this for years. But the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), which you chair, has not yet concluded its review of the app, or demanded that ByteDance sell off TikTok. Recent developments underscore the need for prompt action.
While data security issues are paramount, less often discussed is TikTok’s power to radically distort the world-picture that America’s young people encounter. Israel’s unfolding war with Hamas is a crucial test case. According to one poll, 51% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that Hamas’s murder of civilians was justified—a statistic notably different from other age cohorts. Analysts have attributed this disparity to the ubiquity of anti-Israel content on TikTok, where most young internet users get their information about the world.
Crucially, this disparity aligns with the Chinese government’s foreign policy preferences. Having previously refused to condemn Hamas, the Chinese government is now calling for a “ceasefire” that would cripple Israel’s ability to defend itself. And we know from past experience that political manipulation is business as usual for TikTok. To take just one example, in 2019, as ByteDance partnered with the Chinese government to surveil Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, TikTok censored American user content critical of this repression. It appears that ByteDance is once again up to its old tricks—as innocent Israelis suffer and die.
This simply heightens the stakes of the TikTok question: the longer this app is allowed to operate in the U.S., the longer its Chinese Communist Party overseers will apparently be able to propagandize Americans. That is unacceptable.
I urge you, and the other members of CFIUS, to swiftly conclude your review and ban all ByteDance-controlled apps currently available to U.S. users. The matter is as simple as that.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Josh Hawley
United States Senator