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Gallagher Statement on Report that ByteDance Employees Spied on Journalists

December 23, 2022

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) today released the following statement in response to a Forbes report that ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, found that its employees spied on journalists covering the company.

“TikTok has repeatedly told Congress and the American public that it does not share US user data with its Chinese owner ByteDance and specifically claimed it has never targeted individual Americans. But reports out just today reveal that this was a lie and that ByteDance employees accessed the location data of US journalists who wrote critical stories about TikTok. This is egregious and another reason why the time has come to pass my bipartisan bill to ban this CCP-controlled spyware from the US.”

Rep. Gallagher, alongside Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, recently introduced a bipartisan bill to ban TikTok nationally.