Senators who attended a classified intelligence briefing focused on TikTok's influence say the public should get the same information. There's bipartisan support for a vote on a House bill on the app.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner , D-Va., and the committee's vice chairman, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., listen to testimony from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines during a panel hearing.
Warner noted that after the House received a similar briefing about national security concerns, a key committee approved a bill 50-0. The measure was then overwhelmingly approved by the House 352-65. But Warner said there is a need for more senators and the public to process the information, and the senators aren't likely to act as swiftly as their House counterparts, despite many echoing concerns about the issues posed by the app.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., agreed some information could be released, but he maintained that what is known publicly already demonstrates the threat to users' personal data security and to national security. Pressed on the details of evidence about data directly shared with Chinese government officials, Cotton pointed to the terms and conditions stating that the app can access data once it's downloaded.
He cited statistics about the rise in teen suicides and the link to the explosion of use of multiple social media platforms. Markey declined to say whether he opposes the House bill, but he said the media's coverage of the debate over TikTok was"allowing one company to dominate the discussion, which is every American company is part of that very same threat that is occurring right now, not in the future.
TikTok denounced the House bill last week as an attack on the free speech rights of the app's users and argued that shutting it down would negatively affect small businesses that use it and content creators who rely on it for their livelihoods.
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