Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GALLAGHER. Mr. Speaker, TikTok is a threat to our national security because it is owned by ByteDance, which does the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party. We know this because ByteDance leadership says so and because Chinese law requires it.

This bill, therefore, would force TikTok to break up with the Chinese Communist Party. It does not apply to American companies. It only applies to companies subject to the control of foreign adversaries defined by Congress. It says nothing about election interference and cannot be turned against any American social media platform.

It does not impact websites in general. The only impacted sites are those associated with foreign adversary apps, such as TikTok.com.

It can never be used to penalize individuals. The text explicitly prohibits that.

It cannot be used to censor speech. It takes no position at all on the content of speech, only foreign adversary control, foreign adversary control of what is becoming the dominant news platform for Americans under 30.

Mr. Speaker, this is a commonsense measure to protect our national security, and I urge my colleagues to support this critical bipartisan legislation.

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