Sen. Josh Hawley is giving his fellow Republicans a reality check after the GOP-backed TikTok ban passed the House this week, saying in an interview he is skeptical the bill would make any headway on Chuck Schumer's Senate floor.
Hawley was reportedly was among the first to applaud the bills passing yesterday, which would require TikTok owner ByteDance to divest from the social media app or risk being banned in America.
However, According to Axios, Hawley does not have confidence that the measure will see the same outcome in the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been noncommittal about bringing it to the Senate floor where some have objected to the bill's language.
"I'd be fine taking [the House bill] up verbatim," said Hawley. "But if folks want to take it up and amend it, we can. ... My observation is that people say: 'I agree with the idea in principle but have concerns.' That basically means we should never do anything. What we're likely to see happen in the Senate is people will nickel-and-dime it, a death by a thousand cuts. Nothing that Big Tech doesn't want moves across the Senate floor."
Senator Hawley went on to express concern that the true security concerns are about American user data and not an algorithm that is propagandized by Communist China.
"The app collects way more information than it needs to feed its algorithm, and that information is available to the Chinese Communist Party upon request. ... I don't think we want Americans' text messages to be read, or their geolocations to be available to the CCP, so it can build a dossier on every American. ... Maybe that's to feed its own AI or for some other reason, but it is a hostile foreign government that's been behind hacks of other U.S. citizen information."
"It's not really what's on the platform itself ... that's a red herring."
There have also been concerns that China may not allow ByteDance to divest from TIkTok.
"It's a good question. If it doesn't, that would show how important this app and its algorithm really are."
When asked about the prospect that TikTok may be sold to an American tech company, Hawley was against such an outcome.
"I'd certainly oppose one of the monopolistic tech companies, like Meta or Google, from buying it. I think we ought to be breaking those companies up."
