If the Show-Me State’s national legislators have their way, social media giant TikTok would be shown the door.
Both of Missouri’s GOP U.S. senators, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, are vocal opponents of the Chinese-owned platform and will likely vote in favor of a measure that of the app.
“I don’t think that China ought to own farmland in Missouri or in America; I don’t think they ought to own our industry, whether it’s our meatpacking companies or our steel companies; and I don’t think they should own our media, including social media,” last week.
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Schmitt, saying he still needed to read the bill, said, “I think that this is a massive AI spy weapon aimed directly at the U.S., specifically our kids,” he said.
The lawmakers pushing against TikTok contend that the company’s owner, ByteDance, is required by Chinese national security laws to assist that government with intelligence-gathering, which could include personal data for the app’s 170 million U.S. users.
The bill now is before the Senate after the U.S. House easily passed the measure last week. Of Missouri’s eight U.S. representatives, only Cori Bush, D-Ƶ, voted against the ban. Ann Wagner, R-Town and Country, did not vote.
President Joe Biden has said he would sign the bill if it makes it to his desk.
But Hawley struck a pessimistic note on its probable passage, saying “Big Tech” has a lot of influence in the nation’s upper legislative chamber.
“What we’re likely to see happen in the Senate is people will nickel-and-dime it, a death by a thousand cuts,” Hawley told Axios. “Nothing that Big Tech doesn’t want moves across the Senate floor.”