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Jamaal Bowman: TikTok Ban Would ‘Harm’ Democrats ‘Politically in 2024’

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Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) said banning the Chinese social media app TikTok would ultimately “harm [Democrats] politically in 2024.”

During an appearance on last Thursday’s airing of NBC’s MTP Now, Bowman said people would ultimately “gravitate” to a different platform or create their own if TikTok was to be banned.

Bowman then claimed many of the 150 million Americans on the Chinese social media app are young and “tend to lean Democratic,” which is why he thinks a total ban of TikTok would hurt his political party’s base.

“So if the Democratic Party is a part of shutting down a platform that they have used to build community,” the congressman continued.

“It can harm us politically in 2024. But more importantly, it can harm the American people in our sense of well-being because people find space to be themselves on ticked off that they can’t find somewhere else.”

UNITED STATES - MARCH 23: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is seen during a break in the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing titled TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy And Protect Children From Online Harms, in Rayburn Building on Thursday, March 23, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is seen during a break in the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing titled TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy And Protect Children From Online Harms, in Rayburn Building on Thursday, March 23, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty)

Bowman also claimed during his interview that “there’s been no evidence” that TikTok poses a national security concern through Chinese espionage on the app, but thinks that there is a national security concern from “misinformation and the spreading of misinformation” on social media.

The congressman’s claims come after the popular Chinese social media app was also banned on United States government devices — when a provision was added to the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill President Joe Biden signed into law — for being a potential national security problem. Additionally, there have been numerous governors that have taken similar action at the state level. But, since the initial ban on government devices, many lawmakers want to take it a step further by banning TikTok across the United States.

This also comes after last week’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. Members of Congress grilled him about the various concerns lawmakers have about the social media app. In one instance, Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) was able to get Chew to admit that employees of TikTok’s parent company currently have access to U.S. user data.

“Do any ByteDance employees in China, including engineers, currently have access to U.S. user data?” Latta asked, to which Chew answered, “After Project Texas is done, the answer is no. Today, there is still some data that we need to delete.”

Watch TikTok CEO Not Deny that TikTok’s Parent Company Bytedance Has Access to Americans’ Data:

House Committee on Energy and Commerce

During another instance, following Latta’s question, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) grilled Chew over ByteDance having access to the data of millions of Americans using the popular app.

Cammack pointedly asked Chew about access to user data, and he eventually responded, “Some user data is public data, congresswoman, which means everybody can search for it on the internet.”

Watch Rep. Cammack Grill TikTok CEO on Chinese Communist Party’s Access to Americans’ Data:

U.S. House of Representatives

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.

Tom Cotton on TikTok CEO: Deport Him

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Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Thursday said TikTok CEO Shou Chew should be “deported immediately” following what the senator described as “disgraceful” testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.

“@tiktok_us CEO Shou Chew’s disgraceful testimony today is beneath contempt. He should be deported immediately and never again allowed to re-enter our country,” Cotton declared, adding that “every employee of TikTok in our country should be forced to register as a foreign agent, as should every one of their lobbyists, PR flaks, and lawyers.”

“They should also hang their heads in shame after shilling for a Chinese Communist Trojan Horse,” Cotton added:

Cotton’s remark follows TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s Thursday testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in which he denied the use of the term “spying” to describe the actions of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance.

Notably, the FBI and Department of Justice have reportedly launched investigations into ByteDance after the company “acknowledged firing four employees for using the app to track the whereabouts of two journalists in the United States,” as Breitbart News reported.

“I don’t think that ‘spying’ is the right way to describe it,” Chew said during the hearing.

Tiktok CEO: “Spying” Not Right Word for Surveillance of Americans on Behalf of Chinese Communists:

House Committee on Energy and Commerce

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) also grilled Chew on ByteDance having access to data of the millions of Americans.

WATCH: Rep. Cammack Grills TikTok CEO on Chinese Communist Party’s Access to Americans’ Data:

U.S. House of Representatives

“My colleague Rep. [Bob] Latta confirmed that your parent company ByteDance currently can access user data, yes?” she asked as Chew asked her to be “more specific.”

“Some user data is public data, congresswoman, which means everybody can search for it on the internet,” he eventually admitted as he defended the app, asserting that reports of the parent company being owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a “misconception,” despite the fact that some of the parent company’s top employees are members of the government. Cammack made that point during the hearing.

“The interesting thing to me is that ByteDance, your parent company, has gone out of their way to hide and airbrush corporate structure, ties to the CCP, the company’s founder, and their activities,” she said.

WATCH: TikTok CEO Does Not Deny Bytedance Has Access to Americans’ Data:

House Committee on Energy and Commerce

Further, Chew admitted during a line of questioning with Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) that TikTok tracks the app user’s individual keystrokes.

The hearing resulted in several lawmakers announcing their support for banning TikTok, with others across social media describing the testimony as an “abject disaster” for TikTok.

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Sen, Josh Hawley (R-MO) said following the hearing during an appearance on Ingraham Angle. “Let’s just see what the tally is. Let’s see who’s willing to ban this thing.”

A December Rasmussen Reports survey found most believing that China is using the app to “collect sensitive national security information from U.S. government employees” and supporting federal legislation to ban the China-owned app.

Republican accused TikTok of allowing ‘violent threat’ to remain on platform​ for over a month, then suddenly, the company took swift action

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During a Thursday House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing featuring TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, GOP Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida highlighted a video on the platform that she described as a “direct threat” to the members of the committee.

But not long thereafter, the video had been removed from the platform.

The video, which featured what appeared to be an animation of a handgun firing, included a message that read, “Me asf at the, House Energy and Commerce Committee on 03/23/2023” — the post also included a hashtag with the name of the committee chair, Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington.

“You couldn’t take action after 41 days when a clear threat, a very violent threat … was posted on your platform. You damn well know that you cannot protect the data and security of this committee or the 150 million users of your app because it is an extension of the CCP,” Cammack declared.

Later during the hearing, Chew indicated to Democratic Rep. Tony Cárdenas of California that the content had been taken down.

At another point in the hearing, Chew failed to provide a direct response when Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko of Arizona repeatedly pressed him about whether he agreed “that the Chinese government has persecuted the Uyghur population.”

The congresswoman accused Chew of engaging in evasiveness on what she described as an “easy question.”

Rather than offering a straightforward response, Chew described it as “concerning to hear about all accounts” regarding abuse of human rights, but said that he was at the hearing to discuss TikTok, and claimed that the platform allows users to express their opinions on all issues, including the topic at hand.

During her opening remarks at the hearing, committee chair Rodgers outright called for banning the social media platform. “Your platform should be banned,” she declared.



“TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms”www.youtube.com

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Watch: Rep. Kat Cammack Grills TikTok CEO on Chinese Communist Party’s Access to Americans’ Data

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Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) pressed TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew during a congressional hearing Thursday on the fact that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has access to data of the millions of Americans who use the popular app.

Cammack pointedly asked Chew during the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, “My colleague Rep. [Bob] Latta confirmed that your parent company ByteDance currently can access user data, yes?”

Cammack

WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 3: Rep-elect Kat Cammack (R-FL) poses for for a portrait outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, District of Columbia, on December 3, 2020. (Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“Let’s— we have to be more specific,” Chew replied.

“Yes?” Cammack asked again.

“After Project Texas, no,” Chew said, in reference to the heavily scrutinized initiative that, according to Chew, would essentially create a firewall that shields TikTok user data from Chinese access.

“I’m not asking after Project Texas. I’m asking now,” Cammack said, to which Chew responded, “Some user data is public data, congresswoman, which means everybody can search for it on the internet.”

The hours-long hearing was a rare, brutal bipartisan beatdown of TikTok, which members of Congress across the political spectrum are threatening to ban because of its ByteDance ownership.

Chew insisted during the hearing that the notion that ByteDance is “owned or controlled” by China’s communist government is a “misconception.” However, some of ByteDance’s top employees, such as editor-in-chief Zhang Fuping, are members and affiliates of the country’s government.

ByteDance has been accused of misrepresenting the level of privacy it affords its users as well as spying on the locations of American journalists.

While Chew cited in his written testimony for the hearing that a CitizenLab study found TikTok had engaged in “no overt data transmission” to the CCP and that the app “did not contact any servers within China,” the director of CitizenLab was quick to publicly rejected Chew’s usage of the study, as pointed out by FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr:

Observing that Chew during his testimony and responses to questions had used the term “transparency” more than a half-dozen times, Cammack charged that his posture did not jive with her finding that ByteDance had also “airbrush[ed]” away its ties to the CCP on its website.

“The interesting thing to me is that ByteDance, your parent company, has gone out of their way to hide and airbrush corporate structure, ties to the CCP, the company’s founder, and their activities,” Cammack said.

She continued:

You can look no further than the fact that ByteDance website has been scrubbed. In fact, we found web pages from the Beijing Internet Association, the industry association charged with Communist Party building work of internet companies in Beijing. They have been archived but since deleted. Makes you kind of wonder why. Yes or no, ByteDance is required to have a member of the Chinese government on its board with veto power, is that correct?

Chew replied, “No, that is not correct. ByteDance owns some Chinese businesses and you’re talking about this very special subsidiary.”

Write to Ashley Oliver at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.