China may inflict more damage on the U.S. through TikTok than it can accomplish through its military arsenal, according to the House Republican who has emerged as a leading voice on Capitol Hill on the growing challenge posed by Beijing.
House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mike Gallagher, Wisconsin Republican, told reporters on Monday that the select committee’s investigations into Chinese information operations have made clear that TikTok, the short video-sharing site wildly with younger online browsers, poses a clear and present threat to the homeland.
TikTok and China-based parent company ByteDance remain under intense scrutiny in Washington, where lawmakers and regulators are reviewing ways to restrict the app over data privacy concerns and the fear the site could be used as a conduit for malign influence operations.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have talked of banning or curbing TikTok’s presence in the U.S., but have met with both commercial and philosophical pushback, with some saying the move would amount to government censorship.
But despite the failure so far to crack down, Mr. Gallagher said TikTok presents risks the Congress and executive branch cannot ignore.
“If they could leverage that app in order to spread disinformation and poison Americans against America and American ideals, that would be more powerful than any conventional military weapon,” Mr. Gallagher said. “I’ve actually come to really focus on that in part because of what [Chinese President] Xi Jinping himself has said about the nature of ideological warfare, information warfare and even cyber” conflict.
Mr. Gallagher’s focus on information warfare and TikTok comes at a pivotal time in the popular app’s tussle with the federal government. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew heads to Capitol Hill along with top executives from Meta, X and other social media sites on Wednesday for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about his app’s potential harm to children.
He was peppered with criticism on his last visit to Congress in March, but the grilling led to little substantive action to limit TikTok’s reach in the U.S.
Fears of the site’s seductive dangers are not limited to one side of the political aisle.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Democrat, told reporters the House China panel, set up when Republicans reclaimed control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, is studying China’s propaganda techniques and tactics and believes TikTok and ByteDance present a unique, recurring problem.
“We keep learning that the platform, mainly through ByteDance and its control of TikTok, keeps amplifying content that’s beneficial to the [ruling Chinese Communist Party] and suppressing content that is critical of the CCP,” Mr. Krishnamoorthi said Monday.
But questions remain about whether Washington policymakers will act on alleged dangers from TikTok before November’s elections, however. A bipartisan Senate bill taking direct aim at TikTok lost momentum last year.
Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat, said in October he was worried about the future of the RESTRICT Act, which orders the Commerce Department to review tech offerings such as TikTok and make a determination about risk within 180 days.
The bill was introduced in March and a majority of the Senate co-sponsored the legislation, including 13 Republicans, 13 Democrats and Sen. Angus King, the Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats.
The bill has stalled and the Biden administration’s review of national security concerns involving TikTok has been underway virtually since Mr. Biden took office in January 2021 without producing significant proposals.
A Pew Research Center survey last month found that U.S. support overall for a TikTok ban had fallen from 50% in March to 38% by the end of the year. Among those 30 or younger, 71% either oppose or are not sure about the need to ban TikTok, with just 29% in support.
Montana last year became the first and only state to ban all TikTok use within its borders, but a judge put a preliminary injunction on the law before its January 1 implementation date over concerns it is unconstitutional. The state said it is appealing the ruling.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told senators in October that the issues involving TikTok are broad, and she supported a new bill that Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, Washington state Democrat, was drafting to regulate the company.
Congressional action to potentially inhibit TikTok’s operations will likely become more difficult to pass as the November elections grow nearer.
Politicians facing contentious elections may wish to avoid discussion of banning TikTok until after the November contests finish. TikTok has more than 150 million monthly active users inside the U.S., according to TikTok’s website, and many of those users are young Americans.
TikTok declined to answer questions Monday about the lawmakers’ assessments of threats from their platform.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.