TikTok for government

A provision banning US government employees from using the social networking app TikTok on work devices has been included in the US government's fiscal 2023 funding bill.

According to the bill published on Tuesday, US authorities are required to develop "standards and guidelines for agencies to consider removing the app from technological tools" within 60 days of its enactment.

The intention of US lawmakers to include a ban on the use of the TikTok app in the budget bill was previously reported by Reuters.

On 16 December, the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, William Joseph Burns, said that US intelligence believes that TikTok poses a threat to US national security. In his view, the Chinese authorities "have the ability" to seek to obtain personal data of American users of TikTok, as well as control the kind of materials posted on the social network. William Burns said this was "cause for concern".

It is worth noting that Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown has declared his support for a tax code that supports manufacturing in the US. But he wants this combined with an extended child tax credit.

The risk with each addition is that it could cost the critical votes needed to get it through a narrowly divided Congress.

Mitch McConnell has warned that if the omnibus is not passed by Thursday, he will support a "pivot" to a third short-term funding bill, which he wants to extend in the new year.

This is an outcome that Biden and his Democratic colleagues in Congress will work to avoid.

On 14 December, US senators approved a bill that would ban the use of TikTok on work-related electronic devices belonging to US federal government agencies. The bill, which was approved unanimously by the Senate, will now have to be considered by the US House of Representatives before it goes to President Joe Biden for his signature.