A man was arrested in connection with an arson attack early Sunday in response to “recent conversations” about a ban on the popular video app TikTok, authorities said. The fire broke out at a shopping center that includes a district office of a Wisconsin congressman who has criticized the app.
The 19-year-old man, who was not identified, was arrested after being found near a Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, shopping center that houses an office for U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, a Republican, the department said. city police. <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.facebook.com/fdlpolice/posts/pfbid0D3MG9GmrMNETCgBXEtLUV3eeKooW9bKT1n8B8fo4cLrS2WSr6s9x3Y7gm8vV93dnl” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>said in a statement.
No one was injured and the shopping center was unoccupied when police and firefighters responded around 1 a.m., police said.
According to police, the man was being held at the Fond du Lac County Jail and an arson charge was referred to prosecutors.
The fire remained under investigation. The exterior of the building sustained moderate damage and the interior sustained minor damage. <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.facebook.com/fdlfire/” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>according to the Fond du Lac Fire Department. Fond du Lac, a city of more than 44,000 people, is about 68 miles north of Milwaukee.
The man told authorities he had started the fire “in response to recent conversations about the TikTok ban,” police said.
As of Saturday night, TikTok, the short-form video app owned by Chinese company ByteDance, was unavailable in the United States due to a new law that banned the company's apps in the United States.
A press representative for Grothman did not immediately respond to a question Sunday about the fire. Grothman has been one of many public officials who have expressed concerns about TikTok.
He previously said in a statement that the app “creates a national security concern as the data of millions of Americans is exposed to communist China,” adding that the app's parent company “has a deceptive tool to extract sensitive personal information, including browsing Internet”.
The Supreme Court said the government's national security concerns about the app outweighed the free speech concerns involved in shutting down the app, which is used by about 170 million American users a month.
TikTok said on social media on Sunday that it was “in the process of restoring service” after Trump promised that no one would face financial penalties for hosting TikTok while the service tries to find a way to comply with the law.
