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BROADCASTERS: Today, following the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments regarding the divestiture of TikTok by its parent company, Chinese-based ByteDance, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is speaking out about the impact of this case. Sen. Warner has been vocal about the national security threat that ByteDance poses, and advocated for the sale of the app to a company not beholden to a U.S. adversary.

Notably, Sen. Warner highlights that under ByteDance’s ownership, the Communist Party of China (CCP) has access to the sensitive data of more than 1 billion TikTok users worldwide, including 150 million users in the United States.

In April of last year, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed both chambers of Congress with broad bipartisan support, was signed into law to prevent foreign adversaries from targeting, surveilling, and manipulating U.S. users through the use of online applications. This legislation will require ByteDance to divest their ownership of TikTok ahead of the law’s stated January 19^th deadline. To date, the company has refused. 

Transcription:

Clip 1 – 44 seconds: “Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments about whether the ownership of TikTok needs to change because of national security reasons. Many of you know my position on this issue. I think there is a lot of great creativity on TikTok, I also know people make their living as social influencers, I think that’s great. But I’ve been concerned, literally for years, that because TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese firm, and every company — based upon Chinese law — has to be first and foremost loyal to the Communist Party of China, not to their shareholders or customers, that TikTok has posed a national security concern.”

Clip 2 – 30 seconds: “The overwhelming majority of Congress agrees with this, 80 percent, it’s tough to get 80 percent of the democrats and republicans in the House and Senate to agree on anything. But they agreed that this was a national security concern. This law would not require TikTok necessarily to be shut down, just to have that ownership share sold to a non-Chinese entity. It could be sold to an American company, it could be sold to a British, a French, a Brazilian company, but something that is not at the end of the day controlled by the Communist Party of China.”

Clip 3 – 31 seconds: “The irony is, of course, that former President Trump was the first person to bring this issue to the nation’s attention back in his first term. He has a slightly different view now, but the national security concerns still remain paramount. It appears, we’ll have to wait for the Supreme Court’s ruling, that this law will be upheld. At the end of the day, I hope that will force a transaction and that people can still enjoy TikTok, but that we can also get rid of this national security issue.”

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