‘digital Fentanyl’: Pence Calls For Passage Of Tiktok Bill

Former Vice President Mike Pence called TikTok “digital fentanyl” in an op-ed published Tuesday and called for the passage of legislation that would either force its sale or ban the app, citing security and privacy risks.

“It is essentially digital fentanyl, a 21st century technological weapon,” Pence wrote in a Fox News opinion column. “The app is so potent and addictive that TikTok is banned within China.”

On Wednesday, the House will take up a fast-tracked bill that would force Beijing-based ByteDance to either sell TikTok or face a ban on U.S. app stores. President Joe Biden has said he will sign the bill if it passes, despite his reelection campaign having a presence on the app.

TikTok calls the bill a “defacto ban” and has said it dumped $1.5 billion into efforts to secure U.S. user data from the Chinese government to appease its critics. The platform has been protesting the bill by sending push alerts to its users asking them to call on their representatives to “stop a TikTok ban.”

The Senate previously unanimously voted to prohibit TikTok from official government devices, which Biden signed into law in December 2022.

Pence, who ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in October, called the app “Chinese spyware” and wrote that allowing it to “spew CCP-sanctioned propaganda poisoning the minds of American children is just wrong.”

His op-ed comes after former President Donald Trump announced his opposition to a ban on TikTok, claiming it would only empower Facebook — which he considers “an enemy of the people,” he told CNBC Monday. On the Democrats' side, Biden made waves last month after his campaign began posting official content on the app in a move that attempts to appeal to young voters.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has twice faced scrutiny from members of Congress — first last March as they questioned the platform’s security risks, and again in January, when he was accompanied by four other tech CEOs for a hearing to highlight the continuing risk of child sexual abuse material on their sites.

“Allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States while under CCP control is simply unacceptable,” Pence wrote. “We would never have let Russia run the nightly news during the Cold War, and we certainly can’t let China do the same now.”