Senator Josh Hawley's hopes of seeing unanimous support for his TikTok ban are beginning to look more like wishful thinking than an easy task, as a growing number of Republicans put more obstacles in his way.
In an opinion piece published by the Courier Journal on Wednesday, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul broke with his GOP colleagues to argue that banning TikTok in the United States risks emulating censorship from the Chinese government.
Calls to ban the Chinese-owned social media app have grown amid concerns about national security threats posed by TikTok. There has been broad support for a ban both in Congress and from the White House.
However, testifying on Capitol Hill last week, TikTok CEO Shou Chew insisted that his company was independent of China, pointing out that the app itself is not available in mainland China and saying TikTok's user data is "American data stored on American soil by an American company overseen by American personnel."
Hawley had already been facing a difficult task to get every single senator behind his bill, the No TikTok on United States Devices Act, after a bipartisan group introduced their own legislation, the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, or RESTRICT Act.
While the RESTRICT Act is being led by Democratic Senator Mark Warner, it is also backed by six GOP co-sponsors—Senators John Thune, Deb Fischer, Jerry Moran, Dan Sullivan, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney—meaning the sweeping bipartisan bill could pit Hawley's Republican colleagues against him.
Unlike Hawley's bill, which specifically cites TikTok and ByteDance, the RESTRICT Act does not cite TikTok or ByteDance by name. However, it would give the secretary of commerce regulative power over tech produced in China, as well as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.
In a press release announcing the bipartisan bill, Thune urged Congress to "stop taking a piecemeal approach" and Warner lauded their legislation as "a comprehensive, risk-based approach that proactively tackles sources of potentially dangerous technology."
Despite the competing bill, Hawley told Punchbowl News on Monday night that he still planned to bring his bill to the Senate floor this week in hopes of getting it passed unanimously. It's unclear as to whether those plans have changed since the publication of Paul's op-ed.
Newsweek reached out to Hawley's office via email for comment.
On Wednesday, Paul said a TikTok ban would not only mimic China's speech bans but that Republican support would be ironic, given that "the GOP simultaneously complains of liberal U.S. social media companies canceling and censoring conservatives."
"To those who are worried that the Chinese government might somehow now have access to millions of American teenagers' information, realize that all social media sucks up personal data that people voluntarily provide," the Kentucky Republican wrote. "If you're going to ban TikTok, what's next?"
Delivering a blow to Hawley's plans for unanimous consent on the No TikTok on United States Devices Act, Paul suggested he would vote against all measures seeking to ban the app, "even, if need be, from members of my own party."
The senator said that even if the bill were to be passed into law, he believes the courts would strike it down to protect the freedom of speech guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
"The First Amendment is precisely there to protect speech that might be unpopular or might be controversial. U.S. courts struck down the Trump Administration's ban and, I believe, will strike down any Congressional ban," Paul wrote.
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Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
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