US senators seek to ban federal employees from using TikTok on their phones
Two Republican senators on Thursday introduced a bill aimed at banning federal employees from using Chinese social media app TikTok on their government-issued phones, amid growing national security concerns around the collection and sharing of data on US users with China's government. The bill by Senators Josh Hawley and Rick Scott comes as several US agencies that deal with national security and intelligence issues including the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have banned employees from using the app. It is also the latest attempt to rein in technology companies by Hawley, who has repeatedly clashed with big tech companies. "TikTok is owned by a Chinese company that includes Chinese Communist Party members on its board, and it is required by law to share user data with Beijing," Hawley said. " As many of our federal agencies have already recognized, TikTok is a major security risk to the United States, and it has no place on gov...