Police arrested and charged a man with arson on Sunday following a fire outside the office of Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI).
The 19-year-old suspect told law enforcement he was motivated by the TikTok ban President Joe Biden signed last year that went into effect the night before. Grothman was among the 360 House members who voted in favor of the ban.
In the hours after TikTok stopped service in the United States, the app came back online, saying President-elect Donald Trump cited “the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans.”
This suspect, whose identity the police haven’t made public, was arrested at the scene as he watched the fire that started around 1 a.m. on Sunday. He targeted the Fond du Lac strip mall, where Grothman has an office. No one was in the building at the time. The damage was minor, according to police.
“Nobody was hurt in the fire and the damage has been contained,” Grothman said of the arson event. “Thank you to the FDL firefighters and police officers for your swift response.”
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The Supreme Court upheld the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act when TikTok attempted a legal case that the new legislation was a violation of the First Amendment. It was meant to pressure ByteDance to sell TikTok in order for the social media platform to be hosted by app stores in the U.S.
TikTok is still owned by China-based ByteDance. The law allows the president to decide which countries are deemed “foreign adversaries” and thus ban their apps from app stores.
