The U.S. House of Representatives will bar Chinese tech giant ByteDance‘s products from devices managed by the legislative body beginning on August 15. While the House Administration Committee has already banned the ByteDance-owned app TikTok from House-issued phones, laptops, and tablets, the new cybersecurity measure will include other applications like Capcut, Lemon8, Lark, and Hypic as well.
A notice sent to House of Representatives staff on Tuesday states it will “initiate the block and removal of all ByteDance products from all House-managed devices and app stores.”
Concerns over ByteDance products’ potential espionage applications have led to TikTok’s ban on U.S. federal government devices. However, that measure did not apply to other social media and artificial intelligence (AI) applications produced by the Chinese tech and entertainment conglomerate.
Currently, the Chinese-owned company is challenging a nationwide ban on TikTok passed by Congress earlier this year. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is set to hear expedited oral arguments in September.
Most Americans believe China uses TikTok to manipulate users’ opinions, and research suggests few users buck the app’s algorithm.
While ByteDance claims to be independent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the government holds “golden shares” in the business, and a CCP official wields a veto on its board.
The Chinese Embassy also directly lobbied against the TikTok legislation in Congress, indicating Beijing regards its control over the app as being in the CCP’s interest.