Republican Senator Tim Scott is pushing for more transparency for social media applications, specifically targeting China-based apps like TikTok. Scott’s Know Your App Act calls for stores like Google Play and the Apple App Store to identify the country of origin of each application. The bill aims to increase consumer awareness of potential privacy breaches and exploitation, particularly of minors. The Treasury and Commerce departments would develop a list of adversarial governments with possibly undue influence over application content moderation, algorithm design or data transfers. The bill prohibits foreign adversaries from exploiting certain tools to collect Americans’ private data to gain an advantage over the United States.
