Bowman compares potential TikTok ban to placing 'Band-Support on possibly a small scab'

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) on Sunday argued {that a} nationwide TikTok ban can be like placing “a Band-Support on possibly a small scab,” saying that lawmakers wanted to concentrate on a broader information safety invoice.

“To ban TikTok is to place a Band-Support on possibly a small scab versus what’s occurring in the entire social media panorama,” Bowman mentioned in an interview with MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation.” “We want a nationwide information privateness piece of laws.”

Bowman has been preventing again towards a rising tide of bipartisan assist for a ban of the video-sharing platform, which has come underneath the microscope for its connection to the Chinese language authorities. Final week, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified in entrance of Home lawmakers. Representatives in each events grilled the manager on the app’s relationship with its mother or father firm, which is Chinese language-owned, and whether or not it has shared U.S. consumer information with the Chinese language authorities.

However Bowman mentioned on Sunday the backlash towards TikTok is a part of a fear-mongering marketing campaign by Republicans, and criticized some Democrats for “acquiescing.”

“Republicans can’t govern on the problems, in order that they typically use fear-mongering techniques to show themselves as being robust lawmakers,” Bowman mentioned. “I’m upset that some Democratic lawmakers are responding to them and acquiescing to this rhetoric.”

A bipartisan invoice within the Senate, launched by Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and John Thune (R-S.D.), would give the manager department extra authority to manage overseas applied sciences, corresponding to TikTok, and finally give it the ability to ban or drive the sale of such a platform. Warner mentioned Sunday that 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans within the Senate have voiced assist for the invoice and mentioned the White Home was additionally in favor of it.

However Bowman mentioned as an alternative that lawmakers ought to concentrate on a broader information safety bundle that will cope with the social media panorama and consumer privateness.

“That’s what we needs to be centered on, not scapegoating TikTok,” Bowman mentioned.