Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) urged President Biden on Monday to steer by instance and droop his marketing campaign’s use of TikTok over the risk to nationwide safety posed by the Chinese language-owned app.
The Biden marketing campaign continues to make use of the favored social media platform regardless of the president having signed a invoice into legislation final week that compels the Chinese language government-linked firm ByteDance to divest from TikTok inside 9 months or face a US ban.
“Your presidential marketing campaign defiantly continues to make use of TikTok, ignoring the intense issues your individual administration’s officers have raised,” the 2 Republican lawmakers wrote in a letter to the 81-year-old president.
“We name on you to droop the usage of your TikTok account till ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese language proprietor, sells the applying to a accountable US purchaser,” Ernst and Nehls demanded.
Hours after Biden signed the TikTok invoice – HR 815 – his marketing campaign posted a video on the app of the incumbent mocking former President Donald Trump for pondering “windmills trigger most cancers.”
The “bidenhq” TikTok account, which steadily takes goal on the presumptive GOP nominee for president, has greater than 300,000 followers and has posted greater than 100 movies because it launched in February.
“A fragmented media atmosphere requires us to point out up and meet voters the place they’re — and that features on-line,” a Biden marketing campaign official mentioned final week, defending its use of the app.
“TikTok is one among many locations we’re ensuring our content material is being seen by voters,” the rep added, arguing that the stakes are too excessive in 2024 to not use “each instrument we have now to succeed in younger voters the place they’re.”
The individual famous that the marketing campaign has “enhanced safety measures” in place.
Ernst and Nehls slammed the president for prioritizing “politics over defending nationwide safety.”
“The nationwide safety threats TikTok poses are grave,” they mentioned. “Till TikTok is out of [ Chinese Communist Party] fingers, we name on you to droop your TikTok account.”
“Management begins on the very prime, and we hope you possibly can set a very good instance to the various People utilizing TikTok by suspending the usage of this software till we all know for certain that it’s secure to be used.”
Biden administration officers have warned that People’ information, whereas within the fingers of ByteDance, could possibly be in danger.
“We’re involved, as each American should be involved, about information safety and what ByteDance and what the Chinese language Communist Social gathering can do with the data they will glean off of People’ use of the applying,” White Home Nationwide Safety Council spokesman John Kirby mentioned final month.
“Do we wish the info from TikTok — youngsters’s information, adults’ information — to be going — to be staying right here in America or going to China?” Nationwide Safety Adviser Jake Sullivan mentioned in March, when discussing the TikTok invoice.
“That’s the elementary query at difficulty right here,” he added. “And the President is evident the place he stands on that elementary difficulty.”
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