The House of Representatives on Saturday passed legislation that would ban TikTok from the country if the popular social media platform’s Chinese owners don’t sell their shares within a year, but don’t expect the app to disappear anytime soon.
House Republicans decided to ban TikTok as part of a larger foreign aid package that is a priority for President Joe Biden and draws broad congressional support for Ukraine and Israel, after an earlier version stalled in the Senate Implement quickly.
In March, the House passed a standalone bill with a shorter, six-month sales period in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, with both Democrats and Republicans expressing concern about the app’s owner, Chinese technology company ByteDance Ltd. National security concerns.
The revised measure passed by a vote of 360 to 58 and is now before the Senate after negotiations that would extend the time it would take to sell the company to nine months, and could take another three months if the sale goes ahead.
Legal challenges could extend that time further. The company said it may go to court to try to block the law if it passes, arguing it would strip away the First Amendment rights of the app’s millions of users.
TikTok lobbied hard against the legislation, forcing the app’s 170 million U.S. users, many of them young people, to call Congress and express their opposition. But the backlash has angered lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are broadly concerned about China’s threat to the United States, and few have used the platform themselves.
“We will not stop fighting for you and advocating for you,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video posted on the platform last month targeting the app’s users.
“We will continue to do everything we can, including exercising our legal rights, to protect this amazing platform we have built with you.”
The bill’s speedy passage through Congress is unusual because it targets a single company and Congress has taken a hands-off approach to tech regulation for decades.
The lack of action comes despite lawmakers taking steps to protect children online, protect user privacy and hold companies more accountable for the content posted on their platforms. But the TikTok ban reflects broader concerns among lawmakers about China.
Members of both parties, as well as intelligence officials, are concerned that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data or direct the company to suppress or enhance TikTok content that benefits its interests.
TikTok has denied suggestions that its tools could be exploited by the Chinese government and said it has not shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities.
The U.S. government has yet to publicly provide evidence that TikTok shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government or modified the company’s popular algorithms that influenced Americans’ perceptions.
The company has good reason to think the legal challenge is likely to succeed, as it has had some success in previous legal battles at its U.S. operations.
In November 2023, a federal judge blocked a Montana law banning TikTok statewide after the company and five content creators who used the platform filed a lawsuit.
In 2020, a federal court blocked then-President Donald Trump’s executive order banning TikTok after the company sued on the basis that the order violated free speech and due process rights.
His administration brokered a deal that would see U.S. companies Oracle and Walmart take large stakes in TikTok.
The sale never went through for a number of reasons. One of them is China, which has imposed stricter export controls on its technology suppliers.
Dozens of states and the federal government have implemented TikTok bans on government devices.
Texas’ ban was challenged last year by Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, which argued in a lawsuit that the policy extended to public universities and therefore hindered academic freedom. In December, a federal judge ruled in favor of the state.
Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have backed the app.
“Congress cannot deny the more than 170 million Americans the right to use TikTok to express themselves, engage in political advocacy, and access information from around the world,” said Jenna Leventoff, an attorney for the group.
TikTok has spent $5 million on television ads opposing the legislation since mid-March, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact.
The ads featured a series of content creators, including a nun, who praised the platform for its positive impact on their lives and argued that a ban would trample on the First Amendment.
The company also encouraged users to contact Congress, and some lawmakers received calls containing profanity.
“Unfortunately, the House of Representatives has once again used the guise of critical foreign and humanitarian aid to force passage of a ban bill that would trample on the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, destroy 7 million businesses, and close a country that does so much for society. platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy every year,” said company spokesman Alex Haurek.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., voted against the bill. He said he believed a less restrictive approach could be taken to go after the company without resulting in a blanket ban or threatening free speech.
“I didn’t think it would be well received,” Khanna said. “This is a sign that the Beltway is out of touch with where the voters are.”
Content creator Nadya Okamoto, who has about 4 million followers on TikTok, said she has been having conversations with other creators who are “very angry and anxious” about the bill and how it will affect their lives.
The 26-year-old, whose company August sells menstrual products and is known for her advocacy to destigmatize menstrual periods, makes most of her income from TikTok.
“This will have a real impact,” she said.
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