House overwhelmingly voted for bill that could ban TikTok in US
TikTok is now one step closer to facing US app store removal after a successful US House vote Wednesday.
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The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill that could remove TikTok from US app stores.
The vote succeeded 352-65, with the majority of nos coming from Democrats on Wednesday.
If the bill becomes law it will require the Chinese firm Bytedance to divest from TikTok and other applications that it owns within 180 days. If ByteDance does not divest, TikTok would be removed from US app stores.
Legislators have argued that Bytedance could give the Chinese government access to TikTok user’s data, pointing to national security laws that require companies to help with intelligence gathering.
The bill will now require a successful US Senate vote and subsequent Presidential signature to become law.
Despite its overwhelming success, the bill also received bipartisan opposition.
Representative Jim Himes, a Democrat and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was not in favour of the potential ban that could result from the bill. Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar told The Independent she was not convinced to vote yes even after a national security briefing.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also voted no, telling The Independent it could have unintended consequences for social media use.
Free Speech experts concerned about potential removal of TikTok from US app stores
Several experts in the policy sphere who focus on freedom of speech and expression have voiced concerns over the bill that could result in the removal of TikTok from US app stores.
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, condemned the bill as a “betrayal” of the First Amendment.
“A betrayal of the First Amendment and a great gift to authoritarians around the world, who will soon be citing this profoundly misguided bill to justify new restrictions on their own citizens’ access to ideas, information, and media from abroad,” Mr Jaffer wrote on X.
Mr Jaffer is also a former American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney whose work led to the publication of the Barack Obama era “drone memos.”
Meanwhile, Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, called the bill the “blatant censorship.”
“Make no mistake: the House’s TikTok bill is a ban, and it’s blatant censorship,” Ms Leventoff said. “Today, the House of Representatives voted to violate the First Amendment rights of more than half of the country. The Senate must reject this unconstitutional and reckless bill.”
WATCH: Majorie Taylor Greene opposes House attempt to ban TikTok
Some legislators concerned that bill unnecessarily targets single social media platform
Several Democrats have expressed concerns about the bill, which passed the House with an overwhelming majority on Wednesday, targets only one platform.
Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin, says that he voted against the bill because it “didn’t make a case”. He said that the classified briefing did not give him a “compelling reason to go after a single social media platform”.
Instead, he said that lawmakers should “go after protecting all of our data with all social media companies”. Without that, the bill is about feeling good rather than doing good, he said.
Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar told The Independent she was not convinced to vote yes after a national security briefing.
“They were not able to provide any concrete evidence that this was necessary for us to protect our national security outside of the misinformation that we’ve seen on Facebook, on Instagram on YouTube shorts on Twitter, so just singling out this particular company seemed like it was not in line with protecting our national security,” she said.
WATCH: Co-author discusses bill that could result in TikTok being removed from US app stores
The House has now passed a bill that could ban TikTok. What happens next?
The US House of Representatives has voted to approve a bill that could ban TikTok from US app stores.
The bill – Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applicants Act – overwhelmingly surpassed the 2/3 majority needed when lawmakers cast their votes on Wednesday morning.
Authored by a bipartisan group of representatives, the bill would allow federal law enforcement agencies to label certain apps as national security threats if they are determined to be under the control of foreign adversaries.
Read more on what happens now:
TikTok ban: What happens now after House passed bill?
The legislation that could ban TikTok from US app stores still has more hurdles to pass before it becomes law
Co-author says bill won’t ban TikTok and force users onto Meta platforms as Donald Trump claimed
Mike Gallagher, Chair of the House Select Committee on Competition with the Chinese Communist Party, spoke to The Independent about Donald Trump’s opposition to the bill.
Mr Trump claimed that a potential removal of TikTok from US app stores will allow Meta platforms — like Facebook and Instagram — to become more successful.
“I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better,” the former president said, referring to his baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Mr Gallagher told The Independent that Mr Trump’s portrayal of the bill does not accurately describe its purpose.
“The goal of the bill is not to shut down TikTok and force its users onto Facebook, that would be a bad outcome, so in that sense, I agree with what Trump said,” Mr Gallagher told The Independent. “But our bill allows for a divestiture. Again, a lot of this process started with the former president in 2020, trying to tackle the national security threat posed by finances and ownership of TikTok.”
US-China tech relations expert says to stop calling this bill a “ban"
Aynne Kokas, a professor at the University of Virginia who specializes in US-China media and technology relations, told The Independent the biggest misconception about this bill is that it’s a “ban” on TikTok.
“Every time I see [ban], it I find it like profoundly frustrating because there is an option,” Dr Kokas This why all of these free speech arguments about TiKTok being banned don't really make sense, because [the bill] is not saying that it's not possible for the company to still operate in the US...it's not a free speech question, it is a corporate ownership question.”
The bill would give TikTok parent company ByteDance six months to divest and sell 80 per cent of their shares to an American company before the media platform is removed from US app stores.
Chairwoman of committee that advanced bill reaffirms need for ByteDance divestment
Republican Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Chairwoman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce which voted to advance the bill to the House, told The Independent the Senate must now act to pass the bill.
“The Senate needs to act soon — I recommend that TikTok break up with the Chinese Communist Party,” she told The Independent.
She also noted that Donald Trump’s opposition to the bill — which he said would drive more users to Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram — is a separate issue.
“We share the concerns that President Trump has with Facebook and Meta but that’s a separate issue from this bill,” Ms Rodgers said.
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