Gallagher, who is U.S. representative for Wisconsin's 8th congressional district, stated this amid a series of privacy concerns with regard to China.
U.S. Congressman, Mike Gallagher, has issued a dire warning on TikTok, saying the platform is like "digital fentanyl addicting our kids".
Gallagher, who is U.S. representative for Wisconsin's 8th congressional district, stated this amid a series of privacy concerns with regard to China.
Rep. Gallagher joined "Sunday Morning Futures" on Fox News to discuss the dangers of the app and why he believes it should be banned in the United States.
Gallagher said, “TikTok should be banned. Sen. Marco Rubio and I have legislation that does exactly that. TikTok is digital fentanyl addicting our kids, and just like actual fentanyl, it ultimately goes back to the Chinese Communist Party.
“TikTok is owned by ByteDance. ByteDance is controlled by the CCP. That means the CCP can track your location, it can track your keystrokes, it can censor your news. Why would we give our foremost adversary that amount of power?
“By the way, TikTok is using the swamp against us. They're hiring an army of lobbyists, including former congressmen, senators, 31 former high-level congressional staffers in order to do their bidding. No paycheck is worth that… we need to ban TikTok.”
In November, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, called on the U.S. government to ban TikTok over concerns about how the China-owned app handles the data of American users.
The remarks, made in an interview with Axios, came as the fast-growing app held ongoing negotiations with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, about whether it can continue business in the U.S. if it is sold from Chinese parent company ByteDance to an American company, according to ABC News.
Carr, one of five commissioners of the FCC, called on CFIUS to ban TikTok, citing the company's alleged inability to secure the data of U.S.-based users.