Republican lawmakers urge Biden to deactivate marketing campaign TikTok account

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WASHINGTON — A bunch of 18 Republican lawmakers has urged President Joe Biden to deactivate his marketing campaign’s TikTok account, citing nationwide safety issues.

The lawmakers in a letter seen by Reuters mentioned Biden was “ignoring TikTok’s well-established nationwide safety dangers. How can the federal authorities warn People in regards to the dangers of this app if the Commander in Chief makes use of it, too?”

Biden’s marketing campaign joined the short-video app TikTok on Feb. 11 and comes as he’s courting youthful voters. The marketing campaign’s preliminary video has now been seen 9.6 million instances and it has about 162,000 followers.

The lawmakers together with Sens. Marco Rubio, Jerry Moran, John Barrasso, Marsha Blackburn, Rick Scott, and Josh Hawley urged Biden to “delete your account and publicly acknowledge the nationwide safety menace posed by TikTok.”

The White Home and TikTok didn’t reply to requests for touch upon the letter Monday, whereas the Biden marketing campaign declined remark.

Final week, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner raised issues in regards to the nationwide safety implications of TikTok and the Biden marketing campaign choice to affix.

“I believe that we nonetheless must discover a strategy to comply with India, which has prohibited TikTok,” mentioned Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I am slightly nervous a few blended message.”

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Sunday reiterated her name to ban TikTok. “We should always have banned it from the start. It’s extremely harmful,” she mentioned throughout a Fox Information occasion.

Efforts in Congress to ban TikTok or create new instruments to limit it have stalled, whereas some lawmakers need the Commerce Division to place China-based TikTok mum or dad ByteDance on an export management checklist.

Final month, TikTok informed Congress that 170 million People now use the app, up from 150 million a 12 months earlier.

The White Home famous final week a ban on the usage of TikTok on authorities gadgets authorized by Congress in 2022 and signed by Biden stays in power.

The U.S. Treasury-led Committee on Overseas Funding in the USA in March 2023 demanded TikTok’s Chinese language homeowners promote their shares, or face the opportunity of the app being banned, Reuters and different shops reported, however the administration has taken no motion.

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