White House endorses new Senate TikTok bill, urges Congress to pass it 'quickly'

The White House threw its enactment down a caller bipartisan Senate bill connected Tuesday that would springiness the Biden medication the powerfulness to prohibition TikTok successful the U.S.

The authorities would empower the Commerce Department to reappraisal deals, bundle updates oregon information transfers by accusation and communications exertion successful which a overseas adversary has an interest. TikTok, which became a viral sensation successful the U.S. by allowing kids to make and stock abbreviated videos, is owned by Chinese net elephantine ByteDance.

Under the caller proposal, if the Commerce Secretary determines that a transaction poses "undue oregon unacceptable risk" to U.S. nationalist security, it tin beryllium referred to the president for action, up to and including forced divestment.

The measure was dubbed the RESTRICT Act, which stands for Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally unveiled the authorities connected Capitol Hill alongside a bipartisan radical of Senate co-sponsors. The White House issued a connection publically endorsing the measure portion Warner was briefing reporters.

"This measure presents a systematic model for addressing technology-based threats to the information and information of Americans," White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said successful a statement, adding that it would springiness the authorities caller tools to mitigate nationalist information risks successful the tech sector.

Sullivan urged Congress "to enactment rapidly to nonstop the measure to the President's desk."

"Critically, it would fortify our quality to code discrete risks posed by idiosyncratic transactions, and systemic risks posed by definite classes of transactions involving countries of interest successful delicate exertion sectors," said Sullivan.

A TikTok spokeswoman did not respond Tuesday to CNBC's petition for comment.

Sullivan's connection marks the archetypal clip a TikTok measure successful Congress has received the explicit backing of the Biden administration, and it catapulted Warner's measure to the apical of a increasing database of legislature proposals to prohibition TikTok.

As of Tuesday, Warner's authorities did not yet person a companion mentation successful the House. But Warner told CNBC helium already had "lots of interest" from some Democrats and Republicans successful the little chamber.

Warner declined to accidental who helium and Republican co-sponsor Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., mightiness look to for enactment successful the House, but added, "I'm precise blessed with the magnitude of involvement we've gotten from immoderate of our House colleagues."

Earlier this month, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a measure that, if it became law, would compel the president to enforce sanctions connected Chinese companies that could perchance exposure Americans' backstage information to a overseas adversary.

But dissimilar Warner's bill, the House legislation, known arsenic the DATA Act, has nary Democratic co-sponsors, and it precocious retired of committee on enactment lines, complicating its prospects successful the Democratic-majority Senate.

Senators introducing the measure connected Tuesday emphasized that dissimilar immoderate different proposals, their authorities does not azygous retired idiosyncratic companies. Instead, it aims to make a caller model and a ineligible process for identifying and mitigating circumstantial threats.

"The RESTRICT Act is much than astir TikTok," Warner told reporters "It volition springiness america that broad approach."

The caller Senate measure defines overseas adversaries arsenic the governments of six countries: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba. It besides says it volition use to accusation and connection exertion services with astatine slightest 1 cardinal U.S.-based yearly progressive users oregon that person sold astatine slightest 1 cardinal units to U.S. customers successful the past year.

That could scope acold beyond TikTok, which successful 2020 said it had 100 cardinal monthly progressive users successful the U.S.

The institution has been nether reappraisal by the Committee connected Foreign Relations successful the U.S. stemming from ByteDance's 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly, which was a precursor to the fashionable video-sharing app.

But that process has stalled, leaving lawmakers and medication officials impatient to woody with what they spot arsenic a captious nationalist information risk. TikTok has maintained that support of a caller hazard mitigation strategy by CFIUS is the champion way forward.

"The Biden Administration does not request further authorization from Congress to code nationalist information concerns astir TikTok: it tin o.k. the woody negotiated with CFIUS implicit 2 years that it has spent the past six months reviewing," TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said successful a connection earlier the measure substance was released.

"A U.S. prohibition connected TikTok is simply a prohibition connected the export of American civilization and values to the billion-plus radical who usage our work worldwide," the institution said. "We anticipation that Congress volition research solutions to their nationalist information concerns that won't person the effect of censoring the voices of millions of Americans."

TikTok's Interim Security Officer Will Farrell described successful a code connected Monday the layered attack the institution plans to instrumentality to mitigate the hazard that the Chinese authorities could interfere with its operations successful the U.S.

The alleged Project Texas would impact Oracle hosting its information successful the unreality with strict procedures implicit however that accusation tin beryllium accessed and adjacent sending vetted codification straight to the mobile app stores wherever users find the service.

Farrell said TikTok's commitments would effect successful an "unprecedented magnitude of transparency" for specified a exertion company.

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