Some lawmakers are active on TikTok even after concerns about the social media platform’s surveillance capabilities prompted Congress to ban it on some federal devices in December.
The bipartisan omnibus spending bill passed on Dec. 23 prohibits TikTok on executive branch mobile devices, with limited carveouts for national security, law enforcement and research purposes. However, Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Jamaal Bowman of New York have posted on the app since the vote despite supporting the bill, and other current and former representatives still have accounts on the platform.
The Senate voted unanimously to ban TikTok on government-issued mobile devices in December, and the House’s internal cybersecurity office directed members and staffers to delete the app from any work phones on Dec. 27 due to a “high risk to users,” NBC News reported. (RELATED: TikTok’s Security Protocols Won’t Prevent China From Spying On American Users, Analysts Warn)
The bans followed mounting evidence that TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance has gathered unauthorized data on American users through the app. Beijing, through ByteDance, could use it as an instrument of surveillance, covert influence and espionage, the Biden administration and a bipartisan coalition in Congress have warned.
“We do have national security concerns,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said, according to NBC News. “They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users.”
Yet Democratic members of Congress who took the vote, including Omar, Bowman, Reps. Katie Porter and Tony Cardenas of California and former Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, who used the platform to promote his Senate campaign, have verified accounts on TikTok. Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri also appears to operate an unverified account.
TikTok previously sought out popular accounts to verify, but in November 2022 introduced a new feature allowing users to request verification by proving their identity and notability.
All six supported the bill banning TikTok on some federal devices, and Omar and Bowman have posted since the vote on Dec. 23.

Dailycaller