Republican congressman Mike Gallagher said the sale of China-owned video-sharing app TikTok to an American company is ‘one acceptable outcome’ at a media event hosted by news outlet NBC.
Speaking at NBC’s Meet the Press, the China critic who introduced the legislation to ban TikTok in the US said the Chinese social media company is ‘digital fentanyl’. He likened the opioid and the app and said it was ‘addictive and destructive’ and ‘goes back to the Chinese Communist party,’ according to a report by the Financial Times.
Gallagher will take a prominent position in the US Congress when he will be sworn-in in the next session.
Gallagher said TikTok could become the world’s most powerful social media company and asked Americans if they want the Communist Party of China to have full control over the app.
“TikTok is owned by ByteDance; ByteDance is effectively controlled by the CCP. So, we have to ask whether we want the CCP to control what is on the cusp of becoming the most powerful media company in America,” Gallagher said at the event, according to the Financial Times.
His remarks come days after the US Congress passed the omnibus package where there was a legislation which banned TikTok on all government devices. Federal employees cannot use TikTok on government devices and several states have also barred employees from installing and using TikTok on government devices.
There have been calls from both Republicans and Democrats to ban the app completely in the US. The US Federal Communications Commission commissioner Brendan Carr, who is also a senior Republican, while speaking to Economic Times, said that India has set the right precedent by banning TikTok.
Carr warned that the app works ‘as a sophisticated surveillance tool.’
“We need to follow India’s lead more broadly to weed out other nefarious apps as well. India’s strong leadership has been informative and helpful as we have debated banning TikTok in the US. For those who argue that there is no way to ban an app, India is an example of a country that has done it and done it successfully,” Carr was quoted as saying by the Economic Times.
TikTok is currently facing global criticism after it was revealed that its employees improperly accessed TikTok user data of two journalists and were no longer employed by the company, according to a report by Reuters.
“The employees looked at IP addresses of journalists attempting to learn if they were in the same location as employees suspected of leaking confidential information,” the Reuters report said, adding extra pressure on the Chinese app.
A reporter working with outlet BuzzFeed News and another reporter working with the Financial Times were among those targeted. News media outlet Forbes reported that its journalists were also surveilled.
TikTok, in its response, said it was restructuring the Internal Audit and Risk Control department. It also said it is in the process of building TikTok US Data Security (USDS) to ensure protected TikTok US user data stays in the United States, according to Reuters.
However, the company snapped back at Republican leader Gallagher and said that the CPC does not control the app’s algorithm.
“The Chinese Communist party has neither direct or indirect control of ByteDance or TikTok,” TikTok said in a statement.
Gallagher and Florida Republican Marco Rubio will introduce the legislation urging the US to ban TikTok. The former counterintelligence officer said he wants to work with the Biden administration on the TikTok issue.
Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who is set to be sworn-in as House Speaker, also criticised the Biden administration’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which was aiming to reach a national security agreement with ByteDance to protect the data of American users.
“What we don’t want is some quasi-solution where there’s a data centre in Singapore, but the CCP and ByteDance effectively retain control,” Gallagher said.
TikTok accepted that it obtained the data of journalists as part of its internal leaks investigation.
The Financial Times said that two ByteDance employees in the US and two employees in China gained access to the IP addresses and other personal data of FT journalist Cristina Criddle to understand if she was in the proximity of any ByteDance employees, TikTok said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Christopher Wray said in 2022 that TikTok could be used to facilitate espionage and that Beijing is able to control the app’s algorithm in manners that would help it carry out ‘influence operations’ in the US.
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