Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok bragged about the billions of dollars it allegedly “contributed” to the U.S. economy even as Congress advances legislation aiming to ban it.
TikTok unashamedly announced its contribution of $24 billion to the U.S. economy in 2023, according to a press release that referenced an Oxford Economics study (the press release appears to have been taken offline since). But this announcement came as controversy surrounds TikTok’s China ties. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake in TikTok’s parent company ByteDance. The app has enforced extensive censorship before, even bragging that it had removed hundreds of thousands of videos related to the Hamas-Israel conflict. Notably, MRC Free Speech America rated TikTok as one of the worst Big Tech censors of 2023.
The House of Representatives passed on Wednesday a bill that would force TikTok to divest itself from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or risk being banned from the United States. No matter how much money TikTok provides the economy, it is still a national security threat, critics warn. As MRC president and founder Brent Bozell emphasized, “TikTok must divest itself from China if it wants to do business in the United States.”
Echoing Bozell’s sentiments, MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider explained on Newsmax 2 that the CCP can mine potentially sensitive U.S. data from TikTok while the app simultaneously propagandizes to Americans. “Chinese have already been forcing TikTok to promote Chinese propaganda and to promote the policies of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “Right after the Hamas attacks on Israel, we saw this where the Chinese Communist Party policies were being pushed onto TikTok viewers.”
Ultimately, TikTok cannot be trusted as long as it is Chinese-owned, with its data potentially accessible to the Communist Chinese government.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact TikTok via email at communitymanager@tiktok.com and demand Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment and provide transparency. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
