FRANKFORT — Members of the Senate State and Local Government Committee on Wednesday approved legislation calling for the prohibition of the social media app TikTok on state government networks and devices.
TikTok is a social media network service owned by a Chinese company named ByteDance. Most Chinese companies are connected directly or are partially owned by the Chinese government, said the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson.
“Recently, the FBI has been quoted as saying the video sharing app poses a national security concern,” he said. “TikTok is part of a larger Chinese government effort to expand extraterritorial control over digital platforms worldwide.”
Mills told committee members the legislation, Senate Bill 20, is needed to protect data on state devices. He described TikTok as a “known data mining app,” and said the measure will ensure that existing bans – accomplished through policy – will not time out.
“This has been obviously in the news a lot, and I think there’s quite a bit of data that shows that it’s not safe to have this… on computers, laptops and things of that nature,” he said.
Mills said Apple Inc. and Google have been asked by the Federal Communications Commission to remove the TikTok app from their app stores because of its pattern of data harvesting.
“Nearly half of all the states in the United States have banned TikTok from government devices. Additionally, Congress has recently acted and banned the app as well from their devices,” Mills said.
The committee unanimously approved by the measure with a 9-0 vote. It now heads to the full Senate for consideration.
