US Legislators Consider Law Amendments To TikTok Ban And Applications From China

Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who has signed the bill, Democratic Senator Mark Warner, (photo: Twitter @MarkWarner)

JAKARTA - Legislators in the US are discussing Carta overcoming concerns over a bill that will give Joe Biden's administration new powers to ban the TikTok app owned by Chinese companies.

Senate Intelligence Committee chairman who has signed the bill, Democratic Senator Mark Warner, told Reuters that the aggressive lobbying effort from TikTok, which ByteDance has, against the Restrict Bill "constrains our momentum a little" after the bill was introduced in March.

Warner said legislators had "proposals about a series of amendments to explain firmly" and address criticism, including the possible impact on Americans or that the bill represented the expansion of widespread government power.

"We can overcome these concerns in a fair way," Warner said.

The White House-backed bill will provide the Department of Commerce of new powers to review, block and address various transactions involving information technology and foreign communications that pose a national security risk.

"I'm going to admit this to TikTok - they spent $100 million in lobbying efforts and slowing down our momentum a bit," Warner said, adding that initially it would seem "too easy" to get approval of the bill.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Warner's assessment of their lobbying efforts.

In March, Republican Senator Rand Paul blocked efforts to speed up a separate bill that would ban TikTok introduced by Senator Josh Hawley, who said Restrict Bill "does not prohibit TikTok. It gives the president a lot of new powers."

In March, the Biden administration demanded owners of TikTok from China to release their shareholdings or face bans in the United States. Efforts in 2020 by former President Donald Trump to ban TikTok from being blocked by courts in the United States.

Warner said many talks about the bill, and the bill could be included in the annual defense bill or could be part of China's desired bill by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.

"The need for this law is clear," Warner said. "There are three or four other emerging applications that have been controlled by China, so we need a fair regulatory-based process to deal with this rather than based on individual cases."

TikTok, used by more than 150 million Americans, said it had spent more than $1.5 billion on data security efforts and rejected wiretapping allegations.

The company is battling a ban by the state of Montana which will take effect from January 1. A judge has scheduled a hearing on October 12 at TikTok's request.