GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Lawmakers in the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday that could ban the ultra-popular social media app TikTok.
U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher was among those voicing his support for the government to ban TikTok, and Local 5 News caught up with him to get more insight into the situation.
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Gallagher cites spying and misinformation as the main causes of concern regarding TikTok.
“Under the current ownership structure, the Chinese Communist Party has the ability via TikTok not only to spy on millions of Americans but to control what information they get.”
Gallagher continued to tell Local 5 News that TikTok is quickly becoming a dominant news platform for Americans under the age of 30, so allowing a foreign adversary to control such a news platform is too dangerous.
The United States Government is seeking TikTok to break up with the Chinese Communist Party and change ownership so individuals can continue to enjoy the platform without the risk of spying or misinformation.
“The user experience can continue and improve so long as we address our national security concerns,” added Gallagher.
Gallagher, who has made the decision not to run for re-election, talked about the potential dangers if TikTok doesn’t change ownership.
“If [TikTok] refuses to divest, that should tell us something very interesting about how they view the platform,” explained Gallagher. “Not in pure business terms, but as a weapon of ideological warfare.”
While Gallagher says the statement of ideological warfare might seem over the top, he provided a key example of what TikTok has done in the past.
“If you look at what TikTok did last week when this effort started moving, they forced a pop-notification on all of their users asking them to put in their zip code and then called members of Congress with disinformation, lying about the bill. Imagine if we had been voting on something more important than this [such as] an authorization of use of force in Taiwan, debating China’s trade relation status.”
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Gallagher continued to say this could be used to corrupt our democratic processes and compel kids and young adults to call Congress, in one case, threatening suicide, just shows you how addictive and dangerous the app is.
The bill heads to the Senate next, and if it passes there, it’ll go to President Biden’s desk.
