TikTok ban bill: How Ohio's 15 House members voted on fate of social media app
The House approved a bill Wednesday that could ban the popular social media app TikTok in the United States.
The legislation, which passed with sizable bipartisan support, would require ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, to sell the app within 180 days or face a ban in American app stores.
President Joe Biden has said he would sign it if it makes it to his desk, but the bill's fate is less certain in the Senate, where the measure has proved much more divisive. The bill garnered a 352 to 65 House vote, with all 15 Ohio representatives present.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing. Members of the House’s Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party argue that it creates “an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security” by allowing the Chinese government to “surveil and influence the American public.”
Here's how Ohio's 15 congressional representatives voted during Wednesday's ruling.
Greg Landsman (D-1): YEA
Brad Wenstrup (R-2): YEA
Joyce Beatty (D-3): YEA
Jim Jordan (R-4): YEA
Robert E. Latta (R-5): YEA
Bill Johnson (R-6): YEA
Max Miller (R-7): YEA
Warren Davidson (R-8): NAY
Marcy Kaptur (D-9): YEA
Michael R. Turner (R-10): YEA
Shontel Brown (D-11): YEA
Troy Balderson (R-12): YEA
Emilia Sykes (D-13): YEA
Dave Joyce (R-14): YEA
Mike Carey (R-15): YEA
More: Who voted to ban TikTok? See how your Representative voted in the US House Wednesday
Ohio's only 'no' vote came from Warren Davidson
All but one of Ohio's 15 congressional representatives voted in favor of the TikTok ban bill. District 8 representative Warren Davidson – covering Hamilton and Butler Counties, including Oxford, Middletown and Fairfield – was the state's only "no" vote in the House.
Davidson has been serving Ohio in the House of Representatives since 2016. He was one of just 65 representatives to vote against banning TikTok.
What is H.R. 1721, dubbed the TikTok ban bill?
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill Tuesday, March 5 that would give China’s ByteDance six months to sell off TikTok or blocked by U.S.-based web hosting services and app stores. The bill, dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, has more than a dozen co-sponsors.
"This is my message to TikTok: break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users," Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), the Republican chair of the House of Representatives' select China committee, said in a statement. “America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) said the bill addresses national security concerns posed by Chinese ownership of TikTok and protects American social media users from “the digital surveillance and influence operations of regimes that could weaponize their personal data against them.”
Is TikTok getting banned?
TikTok officials claim the bill would give ByteDance a narrow timeline – 180 days – to find a buyer with the resources to buy TikTok and to overcome the technical challenges involved in spinning it off.
"This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it," TikTok said in an emailed statement to USA TODAY. "This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs."
The bill would also give President Joe Biden the power to designate other apps as controlled by a “foreign adversary." Once an app was deemed a risk, it would be banned from online app stores and web-hosting services unless it severed ties with entities under control of the foreign adversary within the 180 days of the designation.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: TikTok ban passed by Congress. Here's how all Ohio reps voted
