The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that would lead to a TikTok ban if its Chinese owner ByteDance doesn't sell or divest in the next six months. The bill now heads to the Senate for further consideration.
The vote came just over a week after the bill was introduced and after only one public hearing with little debate. The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill 50-0 last week, paving the way for a vote in the entire House.
Prior to the vote, House members received a classified briefing from the FBI, Justice Department, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday.
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.
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.
(With inputs from Reuters)
