Senate Passes Bill That Could Ban TikTok, Biden Expected to Sign
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The Senate voted Tuesday to pass a bill that would either ban TikTok from American app stores and web-hosting services or force its China-based parent company ByteDance to sell the video-sharing platform within nearly a year.
The bill, titled the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, would also create a process through which the president can designate certain social media applications with ties to foreign governments as a national security risk. The measure was approved by the Senate 79 to 18 — sending the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk. The president has backed the bill and said he would sign it into law.
The bill sailed through the House last week by a margin of 360 to 58, after it had passed a different version of the bill in March that stalled in the Senate. The new version is tied to a high-priority package offering aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Tawian, helping expedite its passage in Congress.
Lawmakers have accused TikTok and ByteDance of exploiting American user data on behalf of the Chinese government. The initial legislation was introduced by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.). Gallagher, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, said in a statement in March that he had one message for TikTok, which is to “break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users.”
The bill gives ByteDance nine months to separate itself from TikTok (with a possible three-month extension if a sale is made) or face a nationwide ban.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in March that the Biden administration doesn’t “see this as banning these apps — that’s not what this is,” but rather “ensuring that their ownership isn’t in the hands of those who may do us harm.”
Still, despite the measure’s broad bipartisan support, some have opposed the bill. “I’m voting NO on the TikTok forced sale bill,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote in March, prior to the revised version. “This bill was incredibly rushed, from committee to vote in 4 days, with little explanation. There are serious antitrust and privacy questions here, and any national security concerns should be laid out to the public prior to a vote.”
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