The US House of Representatives has passed a bill with an overwhelming majority to ban TikTok, giving ByteDance, its Chinese owner approximately six months to divest the US assets of the popular short-video app. This action comes in response to concerns regarding the app's use by approximately 170 million Americans.
The bill, which received a 352-65 vote with bipartisan support, now awaits further consideration in the Senate. However, the bill's fate in the Senate is less certain, as some lawmakers advocate for alternative approaches to regulating foreign-owned apps with potential security implications.
The app, on the other hand, maintains that it has not and would not share US user data with the Chinese government. “This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States. The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression. This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country," it said.
What does the bill propose?
The proposed legislation mandates that TikTok must completely separate itself from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or else face the possibility of being banned from mobile app stores and web-hosting services.
Additionally, the bill establishes a framework allowing the president to identify specific social media platforms linked to foreign governments as potential national security threats.
Introduced by Representatives Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi, the legislation aims to address concerns regarding TikTok's ties to ByteDance and the Chinese government. Chairman Gallagher, leading the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, highlighted the necessity for TikTok to sever its ties with the Chinese Communist Party, warning of potential repercussions, such as losing access to American users.
President Joe Biden stated last week that if Congress manages to pass the bill, he would sign it. Explaining the rationale, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the objective is to terminate Chinese ownership of TikTok, rather than imposing a ban on the platform.
He asked, “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?”
How have TikTok supporters reacted?
Ahead of the vote, numerous TikTok advocates, including notable content creators from the platform, assembled in front of the US Capitol to protest against the bill. Furthermore, both Republican and Democratic legislators also reported a flood of calls from TikTok users in opposition to the legislation.
Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other leading technology and civil rights groups wrote a letter to Congress cautioning that the law would “trample on the constitutional right to freedom of speech of millions of people in the United States".
The letter read, "The app enables its users to discuss their opinions, share their hobbies, make art, and access news from down the street and around the world. Jeopardizing access to the platform jeopardizes access to free expression.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar also wrote on X that the bill is against the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression. She said, "We should create actual standards & regulations around privacy violations across social media companies—not target platforms we don’t like."
Similarly, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex also voiced her opinion against the ban. She said, "There are serious antitrust and privacy questions here, and any national security concerns should be laid out to public prior to a vote."
Is the ban related to Palestine in any way?
Few weeks after Hamas's attack on Israel and the subsequent conflict, former Tinder executive Jeff Morris Jr, in a viral thread on X, said, "Israel is losing the TikTok war by a long shot."
Morris's thread prompted several other politicians and business leaders to call for TikTok to be banned. Republican senator Josh Hawley called it "a purveyor of virulent antisemitic lies", while prominent tech investor Sam Lessin said it was spreading "terrorist propaganda".
While competing platforms like X and Instagram operate on the premise of selecting users to follow, TikTok diverges by not mandating new users to follow anyone. Instead, it predominantly depends on its renowned, unpredictable recommendation algorithm to deliver a continuous, highly personalised feed of videos spanning its entire network. This, according to the TikTok users, "makes it much easier for minority perspectives, both radical and reactionary, to spread outside their bubble".
The US government has not mentioned any Palestinian link related to the ban, several critics on social media are pointing out in that direction. Here's what they are saying.