TikTok floods Congress with complaints over a potential ban—making politicians’ point for them

On Thursday, TikTok flooded its users’ phones with a push notification and a message to “Stop a TikTok shutdown,” with a link that allowed users to quickly call their representatives from within the app. The campaign led to hundreds if not thousands of calls to lawmakers, according to multiple outlets, but it also highlighted TikTok’s massive influence: exactly what some elected officials see as the key danger in a foreign-controlled company shaping the opinions of such a large group of Americans. 

One of the co-sponsors of the bill, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), told CBS News that TikTok’s campaign targeted minors who didn’t know what a congressman was. While TikTok’s initiative was meant to convince lawmakers to oppose the bill, Krishnamoorthi said it actually demonstrated why so many members of Congress voted to advance it.

“They don’t want a foreign adversary-controlled social media app using geolocation to target minor children to call members of Congress or interfere in our elections,” he said.

The U.S. government hasn’t definitively proven that China is accessing TikTok user data and the company has said it would not hand over data to the Chinese government. A spokesperson for TikTok declined to comment.

The TikTok bill, dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, would give TikTok five months to cut ties with its Chinese parent company ByteDance, or face a ban from app marketplaces in the U.S. Marketplaces that violate the law would face a fine of $5,000 per user of the app, which could put violating companies on the hook for billions of dollars, thanks to TikTok’s massive user base. 

Despite being introduced just earlier this week, the House Energy and…