Montana’s Republican attorney general is cheering on U.S. lawmakers weighing legislation to restrict the Chinese-owned TikTok social media platform, and is taking these recent congressional actions as vindication of Montana’s own efforts to ban TikTok throughout the state.
Last week, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce voted 50–0 to advance legislation that could significantly impact TikTok’s U.S. operations. Committee Chair Cathy McMorris-Rogers (R-Wash.) said the legislation would force a choice: “Divest from your parent company, which is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party, and remain in operation in the United States, or side with the Chinese Communist Party and face a ban.”
TikTok is operated by ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing. The app’s popularity and Chinese ownership have attracted heightened scrutiny in recent years, with concerns the ruling Chinese Communist Party is able to exercise significant influence over the app’s operation to surveil international users, harvest data, shape global perceptions about China and its ruling authorities, and promote dangerous social media trends.
Given these concerns, the U.S. Congress has previously banned the TikTok app on federal government devices. Several state legislatures have also banned TikTok on state government devices. Last year, Montana went even further, becoming the first U.S. state to pass legislation banning the app outright in the state.
“One of the big reasons the Montana legislature took action is because we just don’t have a lot of faith in the federal Congress that they’re going to do their job,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told NTD’s “Capitol Report” on Tuesday.
Mr. Knudsen argued TikTok is a component of a larger Chinese campaign of “unrestricted warfare” against the United States, with the popular video-sharing app acting as one tool among several to “undermine our society.”
The burgeoning effort to ban TikTok at the federal level now presents another avenue in which TikTok could be forced to part with its Chinese owners or leave the United States.
“I’m glad Montana was a leader on this. I mean, this is something frankly that Congress should’ve done over a year ago. I’m glad the House has got it right now,” Mr. Knudsen said Tuesday
Attitudes Toward TikTok
On Monday, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives scheduled a vote on the bill to force TikTok to part ways with its Chinese owners or face a ban in the United States. The bill appears set to receive a House floor vote on Wednesday.
President Joe Biden has indicated he would sign the TikTok crackdown into law if it clears both the House and the Senate. President Biden’s comment on a potential TikTok ban comes just weeks after his own 2024 campaign team joined the app.
For now, Mr. Knudsen is waiting to see where the votes go in a Congress split between a Republican-controlled House and a Democrat-controlled Senate.
“It sounds like it’s probably going to pass the House. I’m dubious about the Senate,” the Montana attorney general said. “Here we are again, I think you’ve got a federal Congress that’s reluctant to do its job here. We have a legitimate national security concern, like TikTok and like communist China.”
TikTok recently launched a campaign urging its users to oppose legislation that could undermine the social media platform’s U.S. operations. Messages appearing on the app have asked users to call their lawmakers and urge them to vote against such legislation.
House China Select Committee Chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) chastised TikTok in a Monday letter, arguing over the practical effects of the legislation Congress is currently considering around TikTok. The social media platform’s messages to galvanize public support for its side characterized the legislation as a “total ban,” but Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Krishnamoorthi instead argued that the legislation instead “gives TikTok six months to eliminate foreign adversary control” after which “if TikTok chose not to rid itself of this CCP control, the application would no longer be offered in U.S. app stores.”
The two congressmen further argued that if TikTok did not divest from its Chinese ownership, the social media platform effectively “would be choosing” for itself to be barred from U.S. app store services.
Former President Donald Trump recently suggested TikTok’s removal from the United States would effectively benefit Facebook and its owner Mark Zuckerberg, whom the former president described as “a true enemy of the People!” The former president and prospective 2024 Republican presidential nominee had taken executive action to ban TikTok when last in office, but the efforts faced legal challenges.
Elaborating somewhat on his views toward the app in a Monday interview with CNBC, President Trump claimed he never went all the way in his attempts to ban TikTok while in office and instead left the issue up to Congress. The former president said he still believes TikTok poses a national security threat but did not say explicitly whether he would favor efforts to drive it out of the U.S. market if it does not divest from China.
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