Leading Republican Michael Gallagher Steps Up Warning on China’s TikTok: ‘Digital Fentanyl’
A Wisconsin lawmaker, who is expected to become China’s new House Republican figurehead, said on Sunday about TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media site that has become hugely popular among young people in the United States. expressed concern.
Rep. Michael Gallagher, who will chair the new House Select Committee on China, has been critical of China because TikTok has proven to be “extremely addictive and disruptive” for users. He said it poses a danger because it can control or suppress content. About his ByteDance, based in Beijing, TikTok’s parent company, and its ties to China’s Communist regime.
Gallagher endorsed a phrase first used by Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the site was “digital fentanyl” (a highly addictive and often deadly synthetic opioid). The Chinese Communist Party said other authoritarian governments were looking to TikTok and other technologies to tighten their hold on power.
Chinese officials “seem to be perfecting this model of technological totalitarian domination,” he warned. “…and ultimately, I believe it is a model that is not limited to China.
Gallagher and Illinois Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi introduced a bill to promote TikTok sales to U.S. owners, but previous efforts to separate the U.S. chapter from ByteDance’s control have failed.
Gallagher also criticized US social media companies for agreeing to restrict operations in China, but TikTok resisted in the US.
Gallagher said he still believed there was a “workable solution,” but said, “What we don’t want is a quasi-solution with a data center in Singapore, but [Chinese Communist Party] And ByteDance effectively retains control. So the devil is in the details. ”
TikTok denies that its site is used to disseminate Chinese government misinformation or that data and personal information about US users is shared with its parent company or the Chinese government.
Gallagher told Meet the Press that the company’s guarantees aren’t good enough.
“We must ask if we want [China] It’s about controlling what’s going to be America’s most powerful media company,” he said. “It’s very embarrassing.”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jan/1/key-republican-michael-gallagher-steps-warning-chi/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS Leading Republican Michael Gallagher Steps Up Warning on China’s TikTok: ‘Digital Fentanyl’
