WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) joined Fox News’ The Story with Martha MacCallum to discuss Congress’ move to ban TikTok in the United States or force the Chinese-controlled app to acquire new ownership. 

Click here to watch the interview. 

People Are Waking Up To Communist China’s Use Of TikTok As Spyware

“I am so pleased that the House moved their legislation forward. 352 ‘aye’ votes. That is a very good sign. And I think it shows that TikTok has overstepped people realize, you know, with all of these people calling offices last week saying, ‘don't do this. I'll do something to myself.’ People saw firsthand how the Chinese Communist Party can use TikTok and weaponize it. So it helped prove the point. It has pushed it across the finish line. Now it will come to the Senate, and whether it's the House bill or a companion Senate bill, the good thing is this, people realize this is spyware. It is soft propaganda. It is coming from TikTok and ByteDance, which is owned in part by the Chinese Communist Party. China has a national security law. We saw this with Hong Kong. We know it with TikTok. And they have access to every bit of data that a TikTok user generates. So the Chinese Communist Party wants to own the ‘virtual you’ of 170 million American users. People are waking up to that threat.”

There Is Opening To Ban The CCP From Controlling U.S. Data Through TikTok

“Of course we need to deal with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all of the others. Yes. But right now, this is our opening to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party and say, ‘you are not going to be able to control what our young people see and say and think. We are not going to give you the ability to build a ‘virtual you’ of them and to track everywhere they go once they are in your phone.’” 

If TikTok Wants To Stay In The U.S. Marketplace, They Need To Separate From CCP Control

“The ball is in TikTok’s court, if they want to be a part of the American marketplace, separate themselves from ByteDance, go through the divestiture and then algorithmically reform themselves so that they are not collecting that data and sending it to Beijing, China, [and] to the Chinese Communist Party.”