FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sara Robertson (Sara.Robertson2@mail.house.gov)

Rep. Crawford applauds FCC Commissioner’s call for China-based ByteDance’s TikTok app to be blocked in U.S.

11/2/2022

Washington – Today, Representative Rick Crawford (AR-1) expressed support for the call by Brendan Carr, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, for the U.S. government to take action to ban TikTok. The Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) is currently negotiating with the company about how to protect U.S. national security interests and Americans’ privacy, given the control the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship has over all companies in China.

Crawford has been calling for a TikTok ban since June 2020; and last month reiterated the need for a TikTok ban or its sale to a U.S. company, in an opinion piece at the Daily Signal, the Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.

“There are no conditions our government could put on TikTok that would adequately protect our national security and the privacy of the American people from the prying eyes of the Xi regime in China,” Crawford said. “As Alibaba learned after its founder Jack Ma gave a speech implicitly criticizing the Xi regime, companies in China exist at the pleasure of the Chinese Communist Party. The hammer soon came down on Alibaba, and its stock has fallen 79% since Ma’s fateful speech.”

Crawford also called for a TikTok ban in July 2020, and additionally that month joined 24 of his colleagues in supporting Trump Administration efforts to restrict TikTok from accessing the U.S. market. Democrats, who had resisted President Donald Trump’s move to combat the Chinese Communist Party’s potential use of TikTok to compromise our national security – either due to their animus for Trump or their conciliatory approach to the Chinese regime – are now coming around to Trump’s, and Crawford’s, position.

Last week, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) admitted: “This is not something you would normally hear me say, but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago.”

Crawford responded, “Better late than never. I respect Senator Warner’s courage is challenging his party’s base to stand up to China on this issue.”

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