US House of Representatives passes a bill to potentially ban TikTok

TikTok slammed the bill, stating it would inevitably lead to a total ban and accused the government of infringing on Americans' free expression rights.

Some opponents of the legislation, including Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost, think the bill will pass in the House. Frost said many lawmakers who will vote for the bill are motivated by a desire to protect users, which he supports. Frost was among four lawmakers out of the 432-member House that held a press conference opposing the bill.

"The problem is the process here, the fact that it's been steamrolled and people really can't digest the consequences," Frost said. "I would like to see TikTok ownership changed, but not at the expense of our First Amendment rights, business owners and content creators."

The fate of the legislation is uncertain in the US Senate, where some senators want to take a different approach.

President Joe Biden said last week that he would sign the bill.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that the goal is ending Chinese ownership — not banning TikTok. "Do we want TikTok, as a platform, to be owned by an American company or owned by China? Do we want the data from TikTok — children's data, adults’ data — to be going, to be staying here in America or going to China?"

It is unclear if China would approve any sale or if TikTok could be divested in six months

The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok. If it failed to do so, app stores operated by Apple, Alphabet's Google and others could not legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.

In 2020, then-President Donald Trump sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat but was blocked by the courts. In recent days he had raised concerns about a ban.