Speaker McCarthy expects Congress to approve bill to ban TikTok

U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy expects lawmakers to pass a bipartisan bill to fix national security problems caused by TikTok, a short video viewing app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

TikTok CEO Chu Shaw Tzu testified before a House committee for five hours Thursday, answering pointed questions from lawmakers from both parties about the app, which is used by as many as 150 million Americans, according to recent reports.

“We have the head of the company who can’t tell you that China is not collecting data for spying purposes,” McCarthy said.

There are growing calls in the U.S. to ban TikTok or pass legislation that would give the Biden administration the legal authority to seek such a ban. In 2020, President Donald Trump lost several lawsuits seeking to ban TikTok and another Chinese app, WeChat.

McCarthy, a third party in the state, appeared to comment on an exchange of remarks at the hearing that TikTok officials later said was misinterpreted.

At Thursday’s hearing, Congressman Neil Dunn asked Chu Shaw Tzu whether ByteDance had been spying on Americans at Beijing’s request. The CEO of the social network answered in the negative.

Dunn, a Republican, then referred to information made public in December that some ByteDance employees working in China had improperly accessed the user data of two journalists and were no longer employed by the company. Dunn reiterated his question about spying.

“I don’t think spying is the right description,” Chu Shou Tzu said to that. He said the message was about an “internal investigation,” but Dunn cut him off by calling the widespread TikTok “a cancer.”

Many Democrats have also expressed concern, but so far do not support banning the app in the U.S.

“There are real national security concerns about TikTok,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday, pointing to privacy and consumer protection issues.

Chu Shaw Tzu posted a video to TikTok in which he described his testimony at the hearing.

“We will continue to protect your data from unauthorized foreign access,” he said in the video.

The Senate Commerce Committee has not yet scheduled a hearing to consider a bill introduced by Senators Mark Warner and John Thune that would allow the U.S. Commerce Department to ban foreign technology that poses a national security threat. Such hearings may not take place until mid-April, when the Senate returns to work after the recess.

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