Rubio wants Biden to block TikTok after Chinese government takes stake

TikTok app is seen on a smartphone in this illustration taken, Jul 13, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)
WASHINGTON: Republican Senator Marco Rubio on Tuesday called on President Joe Biden to block short-form video app TikTok in the United States after China took an ownership stake in a key subsidiary of ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company of TikTok.
The Biden administration in June withdrew a series of Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of WeChat and TikTok.
"Beijing’s aggressiveness makes clear that the regime sees TikTok as an extension of the party-state, and the US needs to treat it that way," Rubio said Tuesday.