The US House of Representatives this afternoon passed a bill that would require TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the popular social media app or have it banned in the United States.
Efforts to ban TikTok go back to the Trump administration, but the issue has resurfaced in recent months. The House already passed a similar bill in March — one that the Senate has shown little interest in taking up. This new version extends the window for ByteDance to sell TikTok to nine months (compared to six months in the previous bill), as well as giving the president the ability to grant an additional 90-day extension.
The change appears to have satisfied some Senate skeptics. Senate Commerce Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) he told reporters Thursday that he had proposed the extension, as “it assures that the divestiture will become more likely”.
The new bill passed 360-58, with strong support from a majority of both Republicans and Democrats. It is part of a larger package that includes foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and was likely included as a way for House Speaker Mike Johnson to attract more conservative support.
The Senate could pass the package this coming week, President Joe Biden said supports the bill and will sign it. If that happens, TikTok is expected to challenge the bill in court.
The Biden administration has briefed lawmakers on the threats the app poses to national security — both as a source of data on American users for the Chinese government and as a channel for the same government to push propaganda to Americans. Across the aisle, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) described the application today as “a spy balloon on Americans’ phones” used to “surveill and exploit America’s personal information.”
When it became clear that a TikTok account was back on the table earlier this week, the company released a statement arguing that the House is “using the cover of significant foreign and humanitarian aid to again entangle a ban bill that would trample on the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, destroy 7 million businesses and shut down a platform.”
Civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union have also opposed previous attempts to ban the app.
