[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 59 (Monday, April 8, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S2631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           National Security

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, America's adversaries are working 
overtime to undermine our interests and erode the alliances that 
protect them.
  And it is easy to concede that these challenges as playing out 
exclusively on the high seas of the Indo-Pacific or the borderlands of 
Europe or the Middle East. But in reality, the competition is not an 
``away game.'' America's greatest strategic rival is threatening our 
security right here on U.S. soil in tens of millions of American homes.
  I am speaking, of course, of TikTok. Today, 170 million Americans are 
active users of the social media platform that the People's Republic of 
China treats as a tool of surveillance and propaganda.
  TikTok officials like to insist that U.S. users' personal 
information, browsing histories, keystrokes, and other sensitive data 
are kept out of the reach of the PRC's teams of censors and 
propagandists. They claim that what it shows young Americans is what 
they want to see, not what the PRC wants them to think. But the 
company's own words shatter this fantasy:

       Everything is seen in China.

  That is the truth TikTok officials were willing to admit in a leaked 
recording from behind closed doors. And it shouldn't be all that 
surprising anyway: Chinese law requires that TikTok's Beijing-based 
parent company coordinate closely with the PRC.
  All sorts of social media platforms can be fountains of 
disinformation and propaganda. Just look at last week's news about the 
PRC's efforts to manipulate Taiwan's elections with Twitter accounts 
driven by AI.
  But with TikTok, we are not talking about meddling or hijacking an 
American platform. In this case, PRC influence and control has been 
baked in from the very beginning.
  With Beijing's blessing, TikTok's algorithm pours gasoline on 
alarming trends from the glorification of Hamas terrorists to a 
particularly outrageous fad that emerged last year where young people 
``discovered'' the wisdom of Osama bin Laden.
  I wish I was making this up. But let's be absolutely clear: This 
isn't a debate about restricting speech. After all, the PRC does enough 
of that itself. Chinese citizens are barred from accessing TikTok at 
all.
  No matter how loudly TikTok's apologists claim that reining in PRC 
influence violates the First Amendment, the question we will face is 
about conduct, not content. I take a backseat to no one when it comes 
to protecting Americans' First Amendment rights. I have firmly defended 
American's right to even the most noxious forms of free speech like 
flag burning. But there is a serious difference between the views that 
Americans might express on TikTok and the actions taken by a platform 
that is beholden to our foremost strategic competitor.
  Let me borrow an analogy from someone who has been relentless on this 
issue--FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Here is what he had to say:

       You can use a pen to write salacious anti-American 
     propaganda, and the government can't censor that content. Nor 
     can it stop Americans from seeking such messages out. But if 
     you use the same pen to pick a lock to steal somebody else's 
     property, the government could prosecute you for illegal 
     conduct.

  The PRC has spent years trying to pick the lock of America's 
communications infrastructure, and the Federal Government has a long 
history of frustrating Beijing's efforts.
  Requiring the divestment of Beijing-influenced entities from TikTok 
would land squarely within established constitutional precedent, and it 
would begin to turn back the tide of an enormous threat to America's 
children and to our Nation's prospects in defining the competition of 
the 21st century.
  This is a matter that deserves Congress's urgent attention, and I 
will support commonsense, bipartisan steps to take one of Beijing's 
favorite tools of coercion and espionage off the table.