US House speaker says lawmakers will move forward with TikTok bill | – #House #speaker #lawmakers #move #TikTok #bill
WASHINGTON, March 26 (Reuters) – USA House Speaker Kevin McCarthy briefed lawmakers on the Chinese government on Sunday video regarding TikTok, claiming that its app has access to user data national said they would move forward with legislation to address safety concerns.
USABan TikTok, owned by China-based company ByteDance, in , or the president Cho Biden bipartisan to give his administration the legal authority to seek a ban law calls to accept are increasing. Recently USA installation of the program on devices owned by the government is prohibited.
McCarthy tweeted, “House of Representatives to protect Americans from Chinese Communist Party’s technological clutches law will move forward with the project,” he said.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before a US House committee for nearly five hours on Thursday, where he was grilled by lawmakers from both parties. national they talked about security and other concerns about the app, which has 150 million American users.
In Thursday’s hearing, the TikTok CEO was asked whether the app was spying on Americans at Beijing’s request. “No,” replied Chew.
Republican Representative Neal Dunn later cited the company’s December announcement that some employees of ByteDance in China had improperly accessed the TikTok user data of two journalists and were no longer employed by the company. He repeated his question about whether ByteDance was spying.
“I don’t think espionage is the right way to describe it,” Chew said. He explained that the reports were due to an “internal investigation” before being cut.
McCarthy, a Republican, said in a tweet on Sunday: “TikTok’s CEO cannot be honest and admit what we already know to be true – China has access to TikTok user data.”
The company says it is adding 1.5 million to its data security efforts under Project Texas, which currently has about 1,500 full-time employees and is contracted by Oracle Corp ( ORCL.N ) to store TikTok’s U.S. user data. billion spent more than $
Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on the Communist Party of China, told ABC News that rather than assuage lawmakers’ concerns, Thursday’s speech to Congress “actually increased the likelihood that Congress will take some action.” Sunday.
Former US President Donald Trump 2020In 2018, TikTok and a unit of Tencent ( 0700.HK ) tried to ban WeChat, another Chinese app. court lost his mind.
Many Democrats have also expressed concern, though they have not yet publicly supported the US ban.
Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington, adding by Leah Douglas report; Edited by Scott Malone and Cynthia Osterman
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Leah Douglas
2023-03-26 20:05:43
Source – reuters
Translation“24 HOURS”