Hawley pushes legislation to ban TikTok nationwide

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill that would ban TikTok from all American devices.

TikTok is already banned on federal government devices following a bill introduced by Hawley, but now he wants to take it a step further.

Hawley (R-Missouri) said he doesn't like any social media platform to harvest data, but his issue with the application's parent company, ByteDance, having ties with the Chinese government.

"I got to say as a father of three, I don't want the Chinese Communist Party building a dossier on my kids, no parent does, but no parent has the ability to turn it off," Hawley said.

Across the country, 31 states banned TikTok from government devices -- and five other states have proposed bans for government devices. Several large universities across the country banned TikTok on campuses.

There is no legislation in the Missouri state government about the application.

An identical bill was introduced in the U.S. House by Republican Rep. Ken Buck, of Colorado. Hawley's bill was referred to a committee, but awaits a hearing.