Apps owned by Beijing-based technology company ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, will be blocked and removed from House devices starting Aug. 15, according to an internal memo sent to congressional offices Tuesday.
The process will begin with steps to remove ByteDance apps — including CapCut, Hypic, Lark and Lemon8 — on House mobile devices.
“If you have a ByteDance application on your House-managed mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it,” states the memo, signed by House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor.
“In the coming weeks, the CAO Office of Cybersecurity will distribute additional communications regarding the block and removal of desktop and web browser versions of ByteDance products,” the memo continues.
TikTok, in particular, has drawn the ire of lawmakers who argue ByteDance could be sharing sensitive user data with the Chinese government.
That app was banned on all House devices in December 2022. This spring, Congress passed legislation that would force ByteDance to divest or face a nationwide ban in the United States. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law in April, but ByteDance sued, and the case is still making its way through the courts.
Tuesday’s message to House offices increases pressure on members and staff who may still be using ByteDance apps. In addition to TikTok, it includes the popular video-editing app CapCut, which can be used to edit Instagram reels and YouTube shorts.
A handful of members have built sizable followings on TikTok in recent years. Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman of New York and Ro Khanna of California each have hundreds of thousands of followers on their official accounts.
North Carolina Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson generated buzz last year for creating videos featuring the freshman lawmaker explaining in lay terms complex political issues. Jackson currently has 2.2 million followers. He told Roll Call last year that he only used the app from a secure device with no other apps installed.
Eric Jones, a Senate aide and spokesperson for the Democratic Digital Communications Staff Association, said the ratcheting up of social media rules shouldn’t have much of an impact on digital staffers.
“The social media landscape is always shifting beneath our feet and digital staffers aren’t anything if not quick to adapt,” Jones said. “We’ve heard House digital staff have already shifted to platforms like Instagram Reels and we know they’ll easily pivot to video editing apps like InShot, Veed or the Adobe suite as the discussion around ByteDance play out.”
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