US House lawmakers have passed a bill, compelling TikTok’s Chinese parent firm, ByteDance to sell the immensely popular social media network or risk being banned in the United States.
If the bill is enacted, Tiktok would have six months to part ways with its Chinese parent company, or face a ban in American app stores and web-hosting services.
Lawmakers have targeted TikTok on multiple occasions in an attempt to impose restrictions on the app due to worries that ByteDance may be forced by the Chinese government to give up the data of its 170 million American users.
They claim the worry is justified because Chinese national security regulations mandate that organizations assist in the collection of intelligence. TikTok has consistently denied that the Chinese government could use it to spy on US citizens.
With a final vote of 352-65, the law was approved with a majority greater than the two-thirds required to pass it under a suspension of the rules.
The Senate may not support it to the same extent because Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, has not committed to bringing it to the floor.
Nevertheless, President Joe Biden has stated that he will sign it if it comes across his desk.
Despite a last-minute push for lobbying by TikTok’s fans and some resistance from former President Donald Trump, who changed his mind about the app, the measure passed.
The top Democrats and Republicans working on the project said ahead of the vote that the app’s potential for spreading misinformation and posing data “risks” is too alarming to overlook.
“We’ve had instances in the past where TikTok has used the app to spy on journalists, but the broader risk in my mind is having a foreign adversary, in this case, the Chinese Communist Party, control what is increasingly becoming the dominant news platform in America,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., said.
“The risk in terms of propaganda, the risk to influence our election are just too severe. That’s not just me talking. That’s every single major national security official from the Biden administration. That’s why we’re seeking a divestiture to guard against those two risks.”
During an hour-long discussion on the bill, some legislators said that their main objective was not to outlaw a widely used app that is used by over 170 million Americans, but rather to detach the app from its Chinese parent corporation for national security grounds.
“This is not an attempt to ban TikTok. It’s an attempt to make TikTok better,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, as she highlighted the positive educational and business values of the app.
