Presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) introduced legislation intended to rein in TikTok without the outright ban proposed by other lawmakers by requiring app developers to list their country of origin.
On Tuesday, Scott introduced the Know Your App Act, a bill that would require apps to publicly display information about the country in which they were developed. It would also require the Commerce and Treasury departments to create a list of “adversarial governments” that maintain control over an application’s design, content choice, and other elements.
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Scott’s bill is a more moderate response to TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, as it would not require the app to be banned from the United States.
“Americans should be able to make informed decisions about the online services they use in order to protect their data and security,” Scott said in a press statement. “Requiring app stores to display an app’s country of origin is a common-sense solution that can help them do just that.”
The Know Your App Act was co-sponsored by Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and James Lankford (R-OK).
The bill arose in response to four out of five of the top apps on Android and Apple in March being made in China, leading some lawmakers to worry about China’s influence on U.S. users.
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It is one of many bills filed by lawmakers to try to limit TikTok’s influence on domestic commerce and particularly on teenagers. Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced the RESTRICT Act, which would give the Commerce Department additional powers to regulate tech business deals related to nations of concern, such as China or Iran. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) have proposed outright bans on TikTok.
The White House has demanded that TikTok’s parent company sell its shares in the company or face a national ban.
