Political Quotes

“I would like to make a few brief remarks today about TikTok, an app that has dominated the news in recent weeks and has dominated the internet in recent years. As most of you know, TikTok is used to create short music videos, and it has grown to be one of the most popular apps in America. More than 80 million Americans now have TikTok on their personal phones. It might be easy just to assume that this app is harmless--music videos, diverting fun--but, let me assure you, the security concerns surrounding TikTok are real and not lighthearted in the least. TikTok is currently a major security risk, both to our data security and to our national security. ByteDance, which is TikTok's parent corporation, is based in Beijing, and we all know that Chinese corporations and the Chinese Communist Party are, in many ways, the same thing. In fact, China's national intelligence law requires it to be so. ByteDance, as a Chinese company, is obligated to collaborate with Chinese intelligence services, including by sharing data. In fact, all of the data that TikTok and ByteDance collect--and they collect a lot of data--can be routed at a moment's notice to the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok is a uniquely intrusive application. The company openly admits that it tracks users' locations, it tracks users' keystroke patterns, it tracks the filenames on users' devices. TikTok essentially claims the right to peer straight through our phones into our lives. I could go on.…”