Rep. Jamaal Bowman on Wednesday decried government efforts to ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok as “racist.”
During a press conference outside the Capitol Building, Bowman (D-NY), flanked by dozens of social media influencers, as well as Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), urged lawmakers and the public to “not be racist towards China and express our xenophobia when it comes to TikTok.”
The popular social media platform, owned by Beijing-based parent company ByteDance, has come under scrutiny amid concerns that ByteDance could allow the Chinese Communist Party access to user data.
In December, President Biden signed legislation passed by Congress that ordered government agencies to rid their devices of TikTok in an effort to prevent the Chinese government from spying on the US.
In a more extreme measure, last week the Biden administration reportedly demanded that TikTok’s Chinese owners divest their stake in the app or face a possible US ban.
Bowman, who says he got hooked on the app during the January marathon House speaker election, defended TikTok on Wednesday and extolled the virtues of the app, describing it as a platform that has “created a community and a space for free speech for 150 million Americans and counting.”
The New York lawmaker argued that banning TikTok would ravage small businesses and make it harder for Americans to earn a living in an uncertain economic environment.
“It’s also a place where 5 million small businesses are selling their products and services and making a living,” Bowman said of TikTok. “Making a living is at a time when our economy is struggling.”
“Why the hysteria and the panic and the targeting of TikTok?” Bowman asked.
“As we know, Republicans in particular, have been sounding the alarm, creating the red scare around China,” he said, before arguing that TikTok is no more of a national security threat than other Big Tech companies.
“In terms of TikTok’s behavior and its risk to national security, it poses about the same threat that companies like Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and Twitter pose,” Bowman claimed.
“So let’s not marginalize and target TikTok,” he pleaded.
As an alternative to a TikTok ban, New York’s 16th District representative called for federal legislation that would secure information on social media platforms and outlaw “data brokers,” or entities that sell user data to third-parties.
“You can ban TikTok but there are still data brokers that sell our data to other countries and businesses in other countries – they sell to the highest bidder,” Bowman argued.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) called on Biden, 80, to denounce Bowman’s effort to defend the Chinese-owned platform.
“Democrat [Jamaal Bowman] is joining with 20+ TikTok influencers to oppose a ban of the Communist China app. First it was defunding the police, and now it’s supporting Communist China. Will Joe Biden denounce this madness?” Blackburn wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the Tennessee Republican accused the video sharing platform of trying to “lobby its way” out of recent measures to ban the app.
“TikTok is aiming to lobby its way out of repercussions for becoming a spy tool for the Chinese Communist Party. The U.S. government must hold them fully accountable,” Blackburn tweeted on Wednesday.
ByteDance denies claims that it would ever be compelled to share user data with the CCP, calling the concerns “misinformation.”