WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) successfully forced TikTok out as a sponsor of the U.S. Cyber Games after blasting the Biden administration last week. TikTok withdrew as a sponsor Monday after the senators condemned the Biden administration for allowing the Chinese state-owned company to be named the founding sponsor of the U.S. Cyber Games.
“TikTok should have never been anywhere near the U.S. Cyber Games.” said Dr. Cassidy. “The Biden administration continues their pattern of not thinking things through.”
“TikTok is a Trojan Horse used by the Chinese Communist Party to harvest data from Americans and others around the globe. The company should have never been considered as a sponsor for the U.S. Cyber Games,” said Senator Cotton.
Background
Tik Tok is required by Chinese law to share its user data with the Chinese Communist Party. They are also currently the subject of a criminal investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a national security investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department and were recently fined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for violating the privacy of children.
As part of the deal, TikTok Chief Security Officer Roland Cloutier would have joined representatives from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as members of the Cyber Games Advisory Board.
###