What do you do about a problem like TikTok? It shouldn’t be a difficult question, but for years many have been warning about the app being a “trojan horse” collecting biometric data on users for the Chinese Communist Party and yet, with the exception of action taken by President Donald Trump, our government seems reticent to act. The wildly popular video app is a product of a Chinese company called ByteDance which, like all Chinese companies, is obligated by Chinese law to assist the government and are answerable to the CCP, and that would include the sharing of data.
Senator Marco Rubio has been warning since 2019 about the malign efforts of the CCP and their use of TikTok to spy on American citizens. In a statement in August of 2021 urging the Biden administration to ban TikTok in the United States, he warned, ““The Biden administration can no longer pretend that TikTok is not beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing’s aggressiveness makes clear that the regime sees TikTok as an extension of the party-state, and the US needs to treat it that way.”
Rubio had to take that action because upon becoming president Joe Biden reversed the executive order put in place in 2020 by President Donald Trump to ban TikTok in the United States. Biden, predictably, replaced it with a pablum order to “review” foreign-owned apps. The situation is now so grave, Democratic Senator and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner told Vox in November, “‘As painful as it is for me to say, if Donald Trump was right and we could’ve taken action then, that’d have been a heck of a lot easier than trying to take action in November of 2022,’ Warner told Recode. ‘The sooner we bite the bullet, the better.’”
Reports continue to grow indicating TikTok has been storing users’ passwords, and credit card data. Moreover, Forbes has revealed their discovery that TikTok intends to “use the TikTok app to monitor the personal location of some specific American citizens.” Senator Tom Cotton has now bluntly warned the American people to delete the TikTok app and then replace the phone itself. In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security he noted in part, “TikTok captures vast amounts of private information on users, including American citizens, and has long been suspected of providing the CCP with potential access to that information. This threatens the safety and security of American citizens and also functions as an avenue for the Chinese government to track the locations of and develop blackmail on federal employees and contractors.”
The risk is recognized by our government as severe enough to ban our military from having it on their phones as well as “banks and the Department of Defense have told employees to delete the app from company, government, and personal devices. Even the Democratic Party, which has happily embraced the app to reach the youths, uses separate, dedicated devices just for TikTok to ensure that no important files will be compromised. Everyone knows it’s Chinese spyware, and yet few American leaders want to do anything about it,” reported the Examiner.
It’s clear the political class and permanent bureaucracy in Washington, DC is well aware of the threat by banning it in select areas. But why not everywhere? Allowing the CCP to continue to do as it pleases with a few exceptions is the equivalent of allowing a foreign army onto our soil and asking them to limit what they take. It’s absurd, but it’s also strange and exceedingly dangerous.
One of the reasons American leaders are slow-walking this serious threat may be due to the massive lobbying operation TikTok has in place to keep Congress and the White House from acting. Multiple reports indicate a number of previously powerful Republicans and Democratic senators as well as dozens of former congressional staff members are lobbying on behalf of TikTok despite the overwhelming evidence it is operating as a surveillance tool for the CCP.
In July 2020 Open Secrets, an investigative and transparency website focusing on money in politics, reported “TikTok’s [lobbying] roster also includes influencers with close ties to top Democrats in Congress. TikTok recently restructured its internal lobbying team by adding several well-connected lobbyists, CNBC reported. Among the company’s new hires is Michael Hacker, former senior adviser to House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Michael Bloom, a former senior adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).” They also report the involvement of David Urban, involved with Trump’s 2016 campaign and 2020 re-election effort.
It doesn’t stop there. TikTok is “paying an army of lobbyists including former Sens. Trent Lott (R-MS) and John Breaux (D-LA) and former Reps. Jeffrey Dunham (R-CA) and Barton Gordon (D-TN). The lobbying team also includes at least 31 former congressional staffers nearly evenly split between parties, including those who worked for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY),” according to the Examiner.
Rep. Mike Gallagher told the newspaper, “It’s abhorrent that any American, let alone former members and staffers, would sell out their country to make a quick buck courtesy of the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies.” Indeed.
In the meantime, as TikTok continues to feed its communist bosses in Beijing our biometric and other sensitive data, it’s more than privacy that’s at stake—it’s national security during a time of war and adventurism by the world’s tyrants including the CCP, Putin, Iran, and North Korea.
One international media entity warns Tiktok is a “tool for espionage” and should be banned in all Democratic countries, saying it is “naïve and dangerous” allowing it to continue. Senators Rubio and Gallagher are calling for TikTok to be banned in the United States. With the Keystone Kops running the White House, we need more than talk and investigations. We need action by Congress to ban this bomb hidden in plain sight, while we still can.
We can add Joe Biden to that list of the world’s tyrants. Any politician, whether Democrat or Republican, who is involved with TikTok in the manner described in this article, is guilty of treason!
TikTok will NOT be banned in the United States, for national security reasons, as long as the Democrats control Washington, D.C.. Too many Democrats are beholden to China.
i agree but it will never happen – too many adults and kids hooked on it
My Question is why do we give a bigger voice to Foreign Government and their prying eye and ears than we give to the American people.
Every day the Biden Administration and their enablers try to silence the American people all the while allowing TIC TOK be used to spy on everyday Americans and poison the minds of the young and venerable, we know the answer because it helps the DEMOCRATS!
Do you think Biden might be compromised?
Sadly, this shows Biden’s debt to China, and his painfully obvious weakness. Those who are pulling his strings are eroding this nations strength and freedoms. Ban tic tok all together.
Why tell the people? Representatives are elected (hired) to conduct the business of the U.S. They are privy to the most current and sensitive information. If they fail to do the jobs for which they were hired, they must be turned out of office and replaced. Name names. Who is standing in the way of resolving this issue favorable to American Taxpayers?
Took you a long time to post that one. Says more about the site managers than it does about the users.
Nothing will happen. The bums make too much money turning their country over to the enemy.
Banning TicTok would be no great loss. There is nothing on it that is of any value.
All it does is corrode your brain with garbage.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
It has been reported that the USA TicTok content is vastly different than what the Chinese government would allow their citizens to view.
Just another vaccine for the poor Americans! We may never be well again.
Thank for nothing Dem’s
This tells us where Biden and much of the government stands when they won’t ban tic-toc but are eager to take down Twitter since Elon Musk are it a free speech company
Our “leaders” don’t seem to care about Chinese abuse of human rights in China, so I can only guess they don’t much care about those rights in the United States either. They tell us to use more solar panels, many made in China. They want us to buy expensive EVs powered by batteries made in China. Some pharmaceuticals are in short supply, because they are made in China. Tik Tok is just another example of known problems not delt with. It makes one wonder how much dirt the Chinese have on these “leaders.”
People, just don’t use this social media crap. Do you think you can’t live without it?
Ban this CCP crap now!!!
Joey mumbles owes the communist chinese government,joey would support the commies before he would support AMERICA.They,the democRATS give taxpayers hard earned dollars away to special interest groups and foreign countries like its water,they need to be stopped.Backbone up Republicans and stop this nonsense while there is still a small part of AMERICA left to save.
I say let Leftists & Democrats keep TikTok, all else scrap from phones
If it’s owned by the Chinese Government, then it should be under investigation and if found doing any wrong-doing such as interfering in another country’s elections, which it certainly did. Then they should be heavily fined AND expelled from doing any further business in America period.
But since it favors the Progressively Communist wannabe Democratic Party, it’ll NEVER happen and will be ignored thanks to Mitch McConnell and the RINOS! . . . Which will again NEVER HAPPEN due to the gutless actions of the Republican Party Leadership!
Isn’t it amazing that both political parties can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to tell you who to vote for but they can’t spend anything on informing the American people of dangerous issues such as this. A lot of people using tiktoc probably don’t know anything that’s in this article. So much for serving the people.
If any program is harmful to the U.S. or American citizens, it should not be allowed in the U.S. Communists actively seek to destroy the U.S., so anything owned by Communist China should be suspect for doing harm to the U.S. Ban it.
Trump signed EO to ban Tiktok & Biden reversed Exec Order & let Tiktok back in, so let Biden explain that one & why he did that.
It is time to ban TikTok in USA & I think American lives will continue without it. What did these people do 10-years ago before Tiktok came around.
Heard a couple years ago this tik tok thing was no good. Never click on it or watch anything on it.
Trump did ban it. But Biden, who has affinity with the CCP let it back. Biden can claim he’s a Catholic Christian, but Trump has more morals than Biden for sure. Trump cares about the children, not as sexual objects, but as young people to be protected. He also cares about the working people, while Biden thinks he is better than anyone who isn’t an elite. Biden is an evil man. I pray God remove him soon, before our nation has to be totally destroyed by God to save us.
Where are priorities for future of America? It is sad state of affairs that the main topics this week are Twitter, TikTok, Kanye West dinner with Trump, and Hunter laptop. This things must be very important to getting inflation under control.
Senator Rubio ‘and I’ both have been saying Tik Tok is bad since 2019….the number of people using it is…..disturbing. I now refuse to even watch videos if they’re hosted by Tik Tok.
Why would an Administration run by China ban a major source of intelligence to continue the destruction of America?
Another tactic and result of TicTok is to make the American worker and student non-productive. At my job ( government) co workers and subordinates are spending hours a day idly watching the Chinese wepon.
Me too!!
Absolutely! Ban TicTock!! I have very high respect for Marco Rubio recently.
“Reticent” does not mean “Reluctant.”
There is no such thing as “reticent to act.”
Does anyone, anywhere, actually, care anymore?
<slopslopslop><sigh>
”Miss me yet?” – Donald Trump
Videos of kids jumping up and down on people’s cars, drag queens dancing with their genitals in childrens’ faces, etc…….it’s all good. But a “conspiracy theory”? BANNED!
Get it done. This is one waste of time/electricity the young(er) folks can do without. They are already drooling on those phones too much, anyway.
TikTok is owned by a Communist government.
Just as Disney is owned by Communist China.
How long are you going to support and Finance a Communist country that wants YOUR country and wants you DEAD?
The Chinese probably laugh their butts off when they see the stupid American’s taking their challenges’ from TikTok, many of which have killed people. The “Black out” challenge killed 82 between 1995 and 2007 in the US alone. A 10-year-old girl in Italy accidentally asphyxiated herself by tying a belt around her neck and was pronounced brain-dead by doctors. When we ever listen?
Tik tok should have been banned already. what are we waiting for?
Tic Toc was banned, by Pres. Trump, and he was right again. Everything he did was for the nation he loves! Everything Bidum the idiot does is for power/control and to fill his pockets
Harvesting personal data and unduly influencing US elections…. who does Tik Tok think they are? Twitter and Facebook? Or perhaps the FBI?
What I have such a hard time understanding is why any citizen of America would TRUST, support and use an app that comes from a country, owned by another country that continues pressing forward to take America down. What part of “death to America” do our own citizens not understand? We have heard foreign governments and citizens chanting “Death to America” and now our own government seems to have joined the choir and singing the same song!
I agree. Tik Tok needs to be banned permanently.
Ban tik tok
Ban Tic Tok
Please BAN TIK TOK ASAP
It’s time to expand TikTok, not ban it.
I agree 110% that Tik Tok should be banned, it should have been banned a long time ago, it is owned and operated by Communist China and it is saturated with identity thieves and hackers. It does not take a Rocket Scientist to see that it is a threat to America and Americans but then Joe O’Biden and Rocket Scientist could never be used in the same sentence, he is too stupid to know what main line America really needs along with what Main Street America does not need and that is Joe O’Biden, Pelosi and most of the Libtard Democrats. O’Biden would rather do what China needs than to do what America needs.
I downloaded TikTok but didn’t use it much. When I learned that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) was using it to spy on Americans and gather their passwords, etc., I deleted the app. I didn’t have it more than two months. So many young people use it because it’s a fun distraction, but our country needs to ban it because the CCP is our enemy in spite of what compromised Joe Biden tells us. I doubt if Mr. Biden will do anything about it so Congress needs to act ASAP.
Stop with the banning this and banning that! Aren’t we sick of this so-called “cancel culture,” yet? What needs to be done is to have the media honestly report on the issue, for a change.
Once people are made aware of the dangers, if they want to continue with TikToc, well, don’t come crying when you suffer the consequences.
That same modus operandi should be applied across the board to drugs, sex, voting for subversive Progressive-Socialists, etc..
Download and use TikTok. It’s a wonderful platform.