Lawmakers have unveiled a bipartisan bill to completely ban TikTok in the U.S. Cheddar News breaks down the decision behind the crackdown and speaks with influencer Kasey Karlsen to get her take.

Why Lawmakers Are Looking to Ban TikTok

lawmakers unveiling a bipartisan bill signed into law would completely ban Tiktok in the United States called the so called anti social CCP act? It says it would protect americans by blocking all transactions from any social media company influenced by china Russia and other countries of concern Washington worried the chinese government could gain access to Tiktok's us user data under chinese law that would force the company to hand over information. So joining me now is cheddar news senior reporter Michele Castelli. Oh, Michelle, It's good to see you. What more can you tell us about this bill? Well, you know, what's really interesting is it was introduced by senator marco rubio from, from florida. But interestingly enough, it has bipartisan support. So democratic senator krishna morty as well as senator Gallagher from the republican side are also commenting that they are in favor of banning apps like Tiktok where data from can be transferred theoretically to the chinese government. Now, Tiktok denies that this is actually something that can happen. They say they have a lot of checks and balances and they're happy to explain it to lawmakers. But this is just part of a growing movement of people who are saying that Tiktok should not be allowed on american shore's on top of everything. We're seeing that it used to be just a GOP movement. This is the first time we are seeing that democrats might be on board and we've seen states Michelle band government officials from using Tiktok on their phones? That's been ongoing for weeks now. What are the worries behind that and is there evidence to show that they are founded, You know, one of the big, we just saw last week that texas banned Tiktok from their from government officials. As you pointed out there following other states like Alabama south Dakota south Carolina, There's a lot of states that we're seeing that are making this movement. And Nebraska had actually done back in 2020 as well as the U. S. Military. So all as I said, I mentioned a lot of these states that are banning it are mostly GOP. Um most of the people are from the GOP. But again, we're starting to see more democrats now, Tiktok says that the data you have on your phone as an american can be accessed by people across the country across the world. That does include some employees in china. However, there are a lot of checks and balances. You do have to have proper security lev and there are protocols that when you access that data, you actually do need to access that data. So it's not just anyone who can access it on top of that. All american data goes through the oracle data cloud to give it a little layer of security. And Tiktok is working on ways to make sure that american data stays on american soil. The servers are already here near Washington D. C. So they say there's no fears. But of course we do know that there's a lot of influence that the chinese government has on social media in their country and that's the fear here in the US. Well let's hope the user data is protected. I know Michelle you spoke to some influencers and actually influencer agencies about the bill and the changes. What's the sentiment among them? A lot of people were really surprised this morning when they heard about the, sorry, when they heard about it this week, they're still trying to assess what this means for them. I actually spoke to Casey Carlson who has over 260,000 followers on Tiktok. She's known mostly as a metal vocalist, but I'll have you listen to what she says. Honestly, it worries me. It worries me a lot. I've had a lot of wonderful opportunities come from Tiktok. I don't know if you saw, I was just on stage with motionless and white at Madison Square Garden and if it weren't for Tiktok that would have never have happened. Um I have a lot of people like Nick nocturnal seeing my Tiktok was really huge in the metal community. Um, I have some labels have even reached out to me via Tiktok. So it's, it's tough. It's really scary. Speaking of those, she said at one point, about 20,000 listeners would listen to her every month and join her platform because of Tiktok, her band is dead lands. Um and as she said, they are starting label negotiations because of her presence on Tiktok because she was able to build that viral following. So there are a lot of people on Tiktok that do rely on this for a great way to promote what they do for a living. There is a little concerned about that. Yeah, Well, that makes sense. But from american users Michelle, I mean, do you think that this will impact their willingness to use the app? You know, I think Tiktok is uh well, if you just look at the data from one study from cassandra showed that eight out of 10 jen's ears rely on Tiktok for entertainment and 78% of these people, they also rely on it for new. So it's gonna be really hard to remove it from the U. S. Discourse. I asked Carlson if she also was concerned about the data concerns. Here's a little bit about what she said. Honestly, I've got nothing to hide. I don't put my credit card info into Tiktok so I really don't care per se. But I can see why people would be worried. And I think that's the big question, will people leave the platform as more lawmakers grow concerned? Yeah. All right. We'll see how it shakes out Michelle. I know you've been doing great reporting on this topic for us here at cheddar news that is cheddar news. Senior reporter Michelle Castelluccio