Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said China must be stopped from using TikTok against the United States.
Rubio made his comments in a column published by the New York Post on Thursday.
“Most Americans have never heard of ByteDance, but they know its product: The technology company owns TikTok and curates the app’s video feeds for 170 million American users,” he wrote.
“But ByteDance isn’t a normal company. It’s controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, by law and corporate structure.”
He noted China’s totalitarian regime approved a national security law in 2017 that gave it the authority to compel any action by any Chinese company — including ByteDance.
“It also owns a ‘golden share’ of ByteDance’s stock, meaning the former government official on the board can outvote every other board member. Beijing’s control over this company is absolute,” he wrote. “And while TikTok may be headquartered in the United States, ByteDance engineers in China own and operate the app’s algorithm.
“They use artificial intelligence to profile TikTok users’ preferences, beliefs, behavior, and values. In a way, ByteDance gets to know TikTok users better than they know themselves. So if Chinese officials tell the company to use the app against its users, ByteDance has the power to do it — and no choice but to comply.”
And he insisted the idea is not “far-fetched.”
“Over the past few years,” he wrote, “ByteDance has reportedly spied on American journalists, boosted Democratic candidates in American elections, promoted Osama bid Laden’s letter justifying 9/11, skewed political opinion in favor of Hamas, and accessed Americans’ driver’s licenses, physical addresses, device IDs, tax information and Social Security numbers — all through its ownership of TikTok.”
And he maintained the U.S. would never permit the Chinese Communist Party to own and control major American media companies.
“So why should we tolerate Beijing’s ownership and control over TikTok, from which a third of American adults under 30 allegedly get their news?” he wrote. “The House of Representatives just voted overwhelmingly to approve legislation that would force TikTok and ByteDance to separate or else TikTok would be banned.
“Now the bill heads to the Senate, where Mark Warner, D-Va., and I, the leaders of the Select Committee on Intelligence, are going to do everything we can to get it passed and signed into law. Allowing ByteDance to continue owning and operating TikTok is too dangerous. It would threaten our national independence and our personal liberty alike.
“Every American lawmaker should support forcing the app to separate from Beijing. If we don’t stand up for our nation this time, when will we?”
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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