The Senate has been presented with a bill that would outlaw the country's well-known social networking site Tiktok.
One of the bill's proponents is Republican Senator Marco Rubio of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He asserted that the Chinese government used the app to gather private data from Americans rather than just producing movies.
"This is about an app gathering data on tens of millions of children and adults every day in the United States," he said in a statement made public on Tuesday.
He continued, "We know it's used to rig feeds and sway elections. It obediently serves the People's Republic of China, as we know. The time for pointless conversations with a CCP-puppet firm is over. It's time to permanently outlaw TikTok under Beijing supervision.
"Americans from the threat posed by certain foreign adversaries using current or potential social media companies that those foreign adversaries control to surveil Americans, learn sensitive data about Americans, or spread influence campaigns, propaganda, and censorship," according to the bill's preamble.
The measure singles out TikTok and other websites owned by its parent company, Bytedance, as areas of particular concern.
This latest bill continues the trend started by other states with Republican governors. Several governments have taken action to restrict Tiktok's accessibility on state-owned property, including Texas, South Dakota, and Maryland.
The US Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of Homeland Security have all imposed similar limitations on the app.
Donald Trump signed an executive order banning the app just before his administration ended, unless it was sold to an American company. After the order was contested in court, the current Biden administration reversed it.