House committee advances plan empowering Biden to restrict TikTok

The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday advanced a plan that would grant President Joe Biden the ability to further restrict embattled social media platform TikTok.

In a 24-16 vote, the committee advanced the Deterring America's Technological Adversaries Act, the Washington Times reported. The measure, introduced by Texas GOP Rep. Mike McCaul, would require Biden to determine whether sufficient cause exists to ban the app outright and do so should that determination be affirmative.

"This legislation is a first step in protecting Americans against subversive data collection," McCaul said, per the Times. "Currently, the courts have questioned the administration’s authority to sanction TikTok. My bill empowers the administration to ban TikTok or any other software application that threatens U.S. national security."

The measure advanced despite objections from some Democrats.

ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that owns TikTok, maintains close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and lawmakers fear the potential for U.S. user data to fall into the hands of the Chinese government.

Calls for an outright ban have mounted as numerous state governments and the federal government have moved to bar the app's use on official devices. The Biden Administration this week set a 30-day deadline for executive branch agency leaders to remove the app from their phones.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.