Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) is leading the charge for TikTok, while the rest of the House and the Senate are pushing to rein in or ban TikTok outright.
Bowman will host a press conference alongside 20 other TikTok creators and Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Robert Garcia (D-CA) on Wednesday to advocate against a national TikTok ban. Bowman has made a name for himself by using TikTok to post his thoughts on news and legislation and has earned more than 160,000 followers on the platform.
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Bowman has been skeptical of the claims that TikTok could send U.S. data back to China. "I haven't seen any hard evidence that TikTok is committing some form of espionage," the New York congressman told NBC News on Monday. "What I've heard is speculation. And what I've heard is innuendo."
"The idea that, 'Oh, TikTok is the boogeyman' — it's just part of a political fearmongering that's happening," he added.
Bowman represents the 16th Congressional District of New York, including the Bronx. He started out as a teacher in New York and is considered a member of "the Squad," a group of Democratic representatives known for holding some of the furthest left-leaning political views in Congress and whose members include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and more.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify before Congress on Thursday. He stated that the company was committed to enacting a firewall against Chinese access to U.S. data through "Project Texas," an effort to store U.S. data on U.S. servers.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interdepartmental agency that reviews U.S. sanctions with international businesses, demanded that Chinese parent company ByteDance sell its stake in TikTok or risk being banned.
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Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate have proposed several measures to restrict TikTok in the U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has written a bill to ban the app outright. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has introduced legislation to provide extra powers to the Commerce Department to analyze and determine if foreign business deals are security risks.
TikTok has responded by expanding its lobbying campaign efforts. The social media company now has the fourth-highest federal lobbying expenses of any internet company, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan platform tracking political spending.