[Voicemail recording]
“Anyways, I’ll shoot you and find you and cut you into pieces. Bye.”
[Ray Bogan]
Senator Thom Tillis released a threatening voicemail he received from someone who wants him to vote against a bill that would force the sale of the social media company TikTok.
Tillis says he reported the call to police. The caller’s age could determine the consequences. If they’re a minor, Tillis wants their parents to talk to them. If they’re an adult, Tillis says they’ll probably regret they called.
[Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.]
“If you rise to that level in my office, you will be reported to police and I will move forward with prosecution. Done it, there are people in prison right now for having done that. You don’t play that kind of game with me.”
[Ray Bogan]
The voicemail was left by a laughing, young girl and there are other voices laughing in the background.
[Voicemail recording]
“If you ban TikTok I will find you and shoot you. Laughter. That’s people’s jobs and that’s my only entertainment. And people make money of there too, you know, I’m trying to get rich like that.”
[Ray Bogan]
When the bill to force parent company ByteDance to either sell TikTok or be banned in the United States was moving through the House, the company sent a message through the app to all users urging them to, “Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO.” They even included a button for people to call their representatives.
[Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.]
“having that little girl or young girl call my office and threaten to shoot me and cut me I’m not worried about that. I’m not trying to act like a victim. But what I’m trying to point to is a really bad practice and a bad decision on tic TOCs part, and it really just provides more weight to the to the case to move forward with the bill.”
[Ray Bogan]
Tillis blames TikTok for the flood of phone calls that Congress has received and said their government relations team chose the wrong tactic.
[Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.]
“their behavior, and they’re all called a congressman, they ought to rethink anybody that works in their government relations organization should be fired, they should rethink their public outreach initiatives. I mean, they’re really building the case that we have to do something more broadly with social media platforms with a with a simple tweet, you can mislead these kids and get them to mobilize and make those sorts of statements to a US senator and Congressman.